Wounded Ways
by G.E Waldo
Summary: Summary: House family crises, extreme Hurt/comfort, Peripheral character death. SLASH! ADULT. This story will have several chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Wounded Ways

Part I

Pairing: House/Wilson established relationship.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Abuse. Sexual situations. Medical situations. SLASH.

Summary: House family crises, extreme Hurt/comfort, Peripheral character death.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

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Doctor Gregory House hoped his afternoon mental stupor was about to be slain by his ringing office phone.

"House." He answered, then adding "I am absurdly, dramatically bored so I hope this is Cuddy wearing only her thong or Wilson in red leiderhossen. I don't care which so talk sexy." He quipped. His day had just begun with, at first look, an interesting case that had quickly mutated into a boringly common ailment. With no other cases currently requiring his restless mind, he had plopped into his swivel chair and had spent the majority of the afternoon surfing the Internet.

"Greg?" His father's gravely voice caused House's breathing to momentary halt.

"Dad?" Son, like father, waited for the other to start speaking. Son, unlike father, felt the familiar sensation of tension across his chest and a hard knot of muscle in his stomach.

"Your mother..." The elder House did not finish the simple phrase.

His son, tension turning to nausea, filled in the blank easily enough. "What happened?" She was either very sick or - no way would his father call him for any other reason.

"She went quick. Didn't suffer,...they tell me."

Don't trust doctors, the last three words implied.

He, the brilliant son-doctor, found himself unable to gather letters into syllables so to utter meaningful words. "How-"

"Heart attack." John House answered simply. "Funeral's tomorrow morning. Ten AM. Open coffin."

House swallowed a painful lump in his throat. Stomach acid began its customary agitation. "Open coffin?" House repeated, his stomach churning fire. "But...M-Mom wanted to be cremated. She talked about it years ago."

"My wife is not going to be burned. She's going to be buried properly."

"It doesn't make sense-"

"-Are you coming?"

Question ala Asshole. Asked in order to elevate himself above his wayward son who had rarely visited his mother. One last dressing down. _Mom's not alive to hear it, Dad. _

House's face went red. From anger, resentment, embarrassment or grief, even he wasn't sure which were applicable. _The son-of-a-bitch actually expects me to say No_. Saying Yes wouldn't be much better. A Yes indicated that a No had a fair shot, and was the answer Greg believed John House secretly expected.

"Of course." House said. _Fuck you! _

A few more words were exchanged and House replaced the receiver in its cradle.

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In the conference room, from the coffee machine, Thirteen had heard the ring and seen House's face as it morphed. Her new boss was a deep rushing water filled with undercurrents, hidden rocks and broken branches. Unexpected floods were the norm.

The pretty brunette watched, fascinated, as Gregory House's handsome, angular face changed from cocky joviality to guarded fear; like an expectation of something awful had just overtaken him. Kind of like when the IRS rings up. You know you didn't cheat on your taxes but you worry that you must have done something, otherwise why would the IRS be calling? _That_ face.

Face number two said Yes, it is bad news, just not about you.

Face number three said the most - Now you have to go and do something about this terrible news; something you don't want to do; a matter you have no choice in.

House stared at his desk papers thoughtfully for a few seconds. Over the few short months she'd worked for him, House had let her slowly, crumb by crumb, into his unbelievably active mind. He didn't guard himself from people, exactly. He spoke, and often acted out, precisely what he thought and, like a man on a stage, then he'd, in a virtual sense, rush stage left and wait for the applause or jeers. He did not seem to care at all which was offered, as long as his point was made, his way gotten or the medical procedure allowed.

She knew very little about him on a personal level. She watched House shrug into this leather jacket and gather up his wallet, backpack and motorcycle helmet. He poked his head into the conference room.

"I'm gone for a few days. If Cuddy asks, it's a family matter and none of her business. If Wilson asks, tell him...mmm, let him worry actually. He will anyway. Can you, Taub and Trekkie handle our case...whatzits...double name guy?"

"Donald Rogers."

"Yeah, him. Get Foreman to get Chases' help if you need it. But keep him away from the animal crackers."

Hadley was often surprised by the contradictions in her new boss. House put on an act of undiluted indifference to anything personal about anyone else, particularly his underlings, then he'd turn around and let slip some bit of personal knowledge regarding one of them that, had he really felt indifferent about it, would not have remembered let alone mentioned. "Okay." She resisted the urge to ask him what was wrong.

He saw her hesitation, glad she did not ask. "Good." He said, grabbing his cane and lurching quickly out the door.

XXX

"Why didn't you tell me?"

House cringed at Wilson's insistent whine from the other end of his cell phone. Of course Cameron (who had run into Thirteen, and then made whatever discreet phone calls she needed to make to glean the latest) had run and told Wilson all about House's mysterious and sudden trip.

"It's no big deal." House could almost see Wilson's repudiating eyes popping out at him through the phone. Wilson would undoubtedly be seated behind his meticulously clean desk with the pencil holder, paper-clip caddy and staple-puller all in a row, and chewing his nails.

""No big deal"??" Wilson sighed. "Your Mom dies and - look I'm your best friend. I'm more than that. We live together. We _sleep_ together. I care even if you don't...about...you."

House sighed back but it was unprotesting air. "I'm...sorry." He managed, surprised to find his cool exterior basically undamaged by his admittance of an emotion.

"Are you _okay_?" Wilson asked, voice honeyed with sympathy.

"Yes." It was the truth. Funeral was done, his Mom had looked as peaceful in death as she had in life, dressed in her powder blue skirt and suit coat with the lacy collar, her old woman's hands neatly crossed, painted nails and wedding ring sparkling with fresh polish and a careful shine.

House had almost not managed to control his shaking hand and he paraded passed his dead mother behind his very much alive father. Dad had kissed the cold forehead, paused for a second and walked on.

He, her only son, had done no kissing but paused much longer, looking down at his mother's dead, but still beautiful face. He allowed himself the tiniest crack of a door to the possibility that she was somewhere else. And happy. He had allowed it for her. A parting gift.

"Yeah. Fine. We'll be there tonight. Tell Cuddy I'm be at work on Monday." He hung up.

Wilson stepped outside his office. "How is he?" Cameron asked.

He jumped. "Are you actually eavesdropping?" She had obviously been listening outside the door and held no shame for it. For how long she'd been standing there, her ear to the keyhole, he didn't know but House was right, the tiny brunette was presumptiously nosey.

Wilson stared at her for a second, not caring what his expression said. He did not feel like giving Cameron the scoop on the latest House drama.

Her carefully plucked eyebrows drew into a line of impatience. "How is he?" She asked again, a little more insistent.

Apparently his face had not displayed a discouraging frown. Suddenly Wilson felt that he understood House's aversion to ever being involved with the woman. Cameron reeked of not only mothering sympathy, but greedy concern. As though only she above all other people on the planet possessed insight and sweet love enough to see into House's soul and fix whatever she decided was wrong way down in there.

Wilson held that position now and even he, on as intimate terms as he was with House, most times had no idea what was coursing through Gregory Houses' labyrinth-like thoughts or ever saw coming his newest and craziest scheme. Wilson decided that Camerons' snoopy inquiry was way off.

"He's fine." How House felt or thought, was none of her business.

XXX

During the drive home, Wilson cringed whenever he thought of the word "we'll" that Greg had used. Worry began to churn inside his stomach. John House was obviously coming back with Greg. Wilson felt the next few weeks would not be pleasant ones. Greg had said he'd told his mother about his relationship with a man and Wilson assumed she had broken the news to the father. He wondered how _that_ conversation had gone?

"Fun times I'm sure." Greg had remarked and dropped the topic.

Wilson entered and glanced around at the messy apartment. A first impression needed to be good. Better than _this._ Then he hesitated. Does leaving a mess indicate they were still whole, masculine men? Should he leave evidence of being a slob to paint the apartment in masculinity? Does cleaning it up make them appear girly fuss-budgets, tinkling fingers and all?

Wilson sighed. Mess or fuss? Which in a positive way would impress John House more?

"Fuck it." Wilson mumbled and scurried around, tidying up where during the working week, Greg had left plates and clothes. It had not occurred to Wilson there might be a reason behind Gregs' slovenliness. Even those few weeks he had stayed with him when his marriage to Julie had ended. At the time, he had not had insight enough to understand that when pain or neatness were held in the balance, pain almost always won.

Greg ate from cans because proper cooking entailed standing for lengthy periods. Not that Greg couldn't stand for, say, twenty minutes or a half hour straight, he just couldn't do it without pain. He was in pain all the time. Standing made more pain. So when Wilson wasn't there to cook, Greg made peanut butter sandwiches and ravioli from a can. For him, sitting down was relief and relief to a chronic pain sufferer meant: When it hurts _less_.

Ditto for the laundry problem. Draping a discarded shirt over a nearby chair hurt less than walking it to the bedroom hamper. Wilson had come to learn that Greg Houses' work or home life was measured in a unique way -- _Pain-feet_. There were light-years and man-hours, so too was there pain-feet. Twelve inches or one foot equaled a distinct measure of pain on Gregs' hurt meter. He had just so much in his endurance tank per day and if he exceeded it, he'd be popping twice the Vicodin the next day to make up for it. Feet walked, pain measured, tank drained, pills doubled, risk to liver swells exponentially. It was a rather complicated formula and no one but House knew exactly how to calculate it or how far he could fudge the numbers.

Once House had stayed at the hospital for forty-eight hours working, trying to save a patient and on his feet much of that time, until he had come home in so much pain, Wilson had spent the night massaging the leg and, finally, shooting him up with morphine after he had moaned and thrashed for almost twelve hours. Another shot the next morning and House was ready to return to work. He'd eaten nothing and Wilson had been forced to help him shower and dress because the leg was almost numb from the spasms that continued despite his brain being too high on morphine to notice.

This number of feet walked or so that measure of time spent on the leg, equaled _insert-agony-here_ amount of pain. Neatness just couldn't compete.

Wilson surveyed his quick fix job. The place didn't sparkle but it looked better. He had a case of nerves at the thought of meeting John House. He had met him before, but this time he was meeting Gregs' father as Gregs' lover. "Fun times."

Wilson remembered there was almost nothing in the fridge and decided to go the food store.

Be elsewhere when they got back. Let them settle into whatever father/son routine of silent anger they needed to and _then_ make an appearance with his arms full of groceries. He would then be greeted by John House, after a fashion, as a welcomed distraction instead of gay Gregs' live-in boyfriend.

It was easier.

XXX

House turned the key in the lock of his apartment and stepped aside to let his father through first. John House carried a blue, much used old-fashioned suitcase - the kind with the metal snap locks -- setting it down by the front door.

Wilson drove up and saw Houses' car parked out front. He had six bags of groceries and was glad he could make two trips out to the car to further avoid the first greeting of John House as a gay man.

He gathered two bags in his arms, kicked the car door shut with his foot and walked to the apartment. Opening the door he walked quickly to the kitchen, greeting House and Houses' retired military Lt. Colonel on the his way through the livingroom. "Greg -- oh -- _Mister_ House. Hello." Wilson felt immediately uncomfortable under the gaze of those twin grey gun barrels John House used for eyes. House senior was fully aware of his relationship with House Junior and though given no choice by his son to accept it, Wilson suspected the man never-the-less quietly and sternly disapproved.

Wilson could read it in John Houses' face - _There's the homosexual my son is living with. _But what John House said was "Wilson."

The last name monikers with which House habitually christened everybody - Wilson's included - from John Houses mouth held a tone so different from his sons', the chasm couldn't be crossed with a jet-plane. For House the Son it was laced with affection or thick with sarcasm. Whatever the emotion woven into the six letters of Wilsons' name, always it was said with a deeply personal connection.

The _Wilson_ that had just been dislodged from John Houses' mouth was a one syllabled after-thought. Like a bullet casing being ejected from a shotgun barrel. John Houses' lips were curled with a barely concealed disgust and grim in their delivery. The difference between the two styles was like peace and war.

After taking several more minutes to bring in the food, Wilson decided to ignore the more unpleasant aspects of House Senior and offered to make coffee. It was as good an excuse as any to escape to the kitchen. When he returned, far less unpleasant - and that was saying something - House Junior was standing in the middle of his living room and, to all intents and purposes, unsure of what to do with himself since his father had settled his old bones in the middle of his couch.

Wilson decided to hell with convention and walked over, taking one of Houses' stiff arms in his hand and kissing him once quickly on the lips. Wilson could feel the wave of tension emanating from Houses' body and bouncing off the furniture and his own father. Wilson caught the rapid turning away of his head as John House avoided a picture he considered obscene - that of his son being kissed by a man. His own _son_ was a homosexual and Daddy was not pleased.

Wilson didn't give a shit. He served coffee and let father and son alone to discuss whatever they might need to discuss, retreating to the bedroom. Once he closed the door, the tension drained from his body like dirty water.

In the living room, House stared at his father as his father drank his coffee, double cream, no sugar. "What kind of a place were you thinking about?" He asked the elder House.

"Once the condo sells, I thought maybe a retirement community right here in town. Someplace where someone else does the laundry and makes the meals but otherwise leaves you the hell alone." John House summed up.

House stiffened at the mention of his father settling in Princeton. He had brought him home because John House had requested it and assumed it was because his father and he needed to have some legal discussions about his mothers' will or some such thing that had never actually crossed his mind until after the funeral. He had long assumed that his dad would leave everything to his mom, but her dying first had never entered the rare and fleeting speculation of his mind and how stupid that made him feel now.

There had been no reading of Blyth Houses' will. All legal papers had been left in her husbands' hands. House wanted to ask his father if his mother had written any final message to him or left him a memento, but his father had not once mentioned his wife's will and House was trained well enough in the ways of not only a military family but his fathers' version of military family to not bring the subject up. Had Blyth House left her son anything, her husband would have already made the decision (regardless of his wifes' wishes) whether to give it to his son or toss it in the trash without his son ever having knowledge of it.

John House had always assumed to know what was best for his family and Greg House held no illusions that the mere death of his fathers' wife would alter that. The reality that his son was nearly fifty years old had not crossed the mind of the father.

Even at fifty, Gregory was still his son.

An hour later, while Wilson was still absconded in the bedroom, that son was on his third bourbon of the evening. John watched Gregory as he swirled the amber fluid around in the short drinking glass, staring into it. John suspected it was, in his sons' mind, the better place to stare, rather than having to look at his father. Looking meant conversing. Conversing meant sharing. Sharing what was where the problems usually began.

John had declined Gregs' offer of alcohol.

"Hungry?" his son asked suddenly.

John House nodded. He was. Between the funeral arrangements, the traveling, the showings at the condo and his age, he had not had time to eat for over a day. "Sure."

Greg, with the help of his ever present cane, got to his feet and limped to the kitchen.

John House studied his sons' unusual gate. Despite what he believed to be Gregs' self coddling on the matter, he had never gotten used to seeing his only son as a cripple. He had been so active as a boy. So active as to be a major worry for his mother. Running, exploring, climbing, falling . . . "Need help?" He felt he ought to offer.

Greg just shook his head and John watched him as he withdrew bread and cans from the cupboard, and condiments form the fridge. In a few moments, John could smell tuna. Sandwiches then.

Greg brought back a short stack of cut sandwiches on a plate and left them on the coffee table. He returned to the kitchen, asking over his back, "Something to drink? I think I have orange juice."

John said a polite "Yes." Feeling more and more like a new and awkward piece of furniture in his sons' apartment.

Greg returned with a full glass and placed it in front of him then returned to his chair. He stared into his glass once more, the effort of being socially proper seeming to have exhausted him.

John ate silently while he watched his son drain his glass. He was clearly not going to be eating.

John decided to tell his son something. "Your mother would have approved of the proper burial you know."

"What's proper about defying her wishes?"

"I knew your mother almost all my life. that cremation business was just her trying to save the planet."

"Oh." The drink had made him light headed and loose tongued. "All that social consciousness must have been annoying as hell. All the better you ignored her then."

John House felt the blood rise along the back of his collar. He didn't want a fight, but with Gregory that's almost all he ever got. For almost fifty years Blyth had set herself as the blow softening boundary between them and now that boundary was gone. John House had been in his sons' presence for almost three days, the longest stretch since Greg had left home. And, watching his son limp around the room, seeing him take pill after pill and drink after drink, eyeing his careless grooming and seeing the disheveled nature of his home maintenance, John House came to the sad conclusion that his only son was a stranger. They had never been close, but now it felt like Greg would rather have been entertaining a homeless guy from the street. Nary a difference.

"I know you hate me." John House said as Greg poured a fourth drink. The bottle was half gone. Greg set the bottle down carefully, deliberately slow-handed, as though making any noise might be a rude interruption of the hard, pulsing words his father had just spoken.

Greg sighed heavily and leaned back in his square, dark easy chair. "You have no idea what I feel." He answered.

That was probably true, but hate was in there somewhere. John House had felt it almost his whole life as a father. Try as he might to correct any possible mistakes that had been made, his son despised him. "She wanted you to know she loves you. Those were her last words."

Gregory House hated that his father had told him that. The implication was simple: Son had hardly ever visited his mother so she had hardly any opportunity to tell her son how she felt. Sons' fault entirely. He wanted to tell his father off but had no energy left for the effort. He had expended himself over the last three days and he was on Empty. His tiny reserve of social decorum had been wrung dry of platitudes, hand-shakes and thank-you's offered to a crowd of related strangers he would never see again. Until his fathers' funeral.

"Fine." He answered.

XXX

Part II ASAP! (This will have several chapters at least)


	2. Chapter 2

Wounded Ways

Part II

Pairing: House/Wilson established relationship.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Abuse. Sexual situations. Medical situations. SLASH.

Summary: House family crises, extreme Hurt/comfort, Peripheral character death.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

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John House, his formerly strong back now curved with age, shuffled to the bathroom and Greg House took the opportunity to visit Wilson who had shut himself in the bedroom.

Wilson was reclined on the bed reading a novel, his feet crossed at the ankles.

House sat down on the edge and looked at the cover. "New Roberts huh? Any good?"

Wilson nodded and set it aside. "Not as dramatic as I suspect these next few weeks are going to be." He remarked, feeling bad for House. He looked miserable.

"How long is he staying?"

House shrugged, acknowledging the awkwardness of the situation. "He . . .wants to stay here for a few days until he can get into a new place."

Wilson thought he understood. "Oh. You mean . .?"

"Yeah. I can't let him sleep on the couch. I may be crippled but he's seventy-four years old . . ."

Wilson recalled the hardness of the furniture in question. No, putting an elderly man with arthritis in both knees on as unforgiving a pallet as Houses' couch was unthinkable. And Wilson had insight enough to know House would need time with his father to sort things out regarding his fathers' move. "You need me to go to a hotel?"

House nodded but was clearly less than thrilled about his dad staying with him for any length of time without the calming influence of his partner and roommate.

Wilson suspected a royal war between Houses was about to be launched. He felt guilty for being a little relieved that he would not be present for those battles.

House said, "Just for a few days. Unless you want to share the couch with me?"

Wilson would have considered it if he thought Houses' couch would in any way accommodate them both. It would make for some very cozy and delicious nights. Just the idea of being twisted up in Houses' long muscles and perfect ass was giving him a decidedly warm feeling. He smiled, revealing his secret fantasy.

House caught it and turned the corners of his mouth up a little. It was closest to an actual smile Wilson had seen on him for a while. House was not a humorless fellow, just somber as they came. He cracked jokes all the time but he didn't often laugh at them unless they were really clever or ones _he_ himself told.

House rubbed a thumb over his forehead that Wilson recognized as a habitual worry-tic. On top of all the other sound reasons, John House being made to crash on the couch while they slept in the same bed in the next room . . .it was a situation with which Wilson guessed House wasn't comfortable enough to allow. If Wilson knew John House at all, he realized the three of them under the same roof for any length of time would be a recipe for a heavy father/son confrontation if ever there was one.

"No problem. I can go to the usual place--"

"--_No_." House said sharply.

Wilson wondered why the protest and then quickly understood. Wilson having been forced into staying in a hotel was one thing, but staying in the same hotel as when he had left his wife, made House nervous.

"Oh. Uh, there's plenty of others. I'll call you with the phone and room numbers later." Pulling down a small suitcase, Wilson started thrusting a few personal things into it. He paused long enough to kiss House on the lips. "Gonna miss _that_."

XXX

The following Saturday morning, his sons' friend Wilson dropped in, greeting John pleasantly and walking to the kitchen where Gregory was brewing coffee. John imagined the sloppy kiss they might be exchanging out of his sight, glad he did not see it.

After coffee, John announced "I might take a walk to the park. Maybe check out the shops."

Gregory nodded and he and Wilson began discussing a medical case or other.

John walked several blocks and stopped in at a small bakery. He would bring home some donuts maybe for all three of them. May as well try and be pleasant. He ordered a half dozen mix but when he felt for his wallet he found it missing. "Shit." He had left it on the desk by the front door. Making his apologies to the cashier, he assured her he would be back in twenty minutes with the money and left the box of donuts on the tall glass counter.

Using the key his son had provided, he opened the apartment door to find the place empty. They must have gone out. He easily located his wallet and slipped it into his back pocket. The bathroom called him and, as John had learned while growing older, at seventy-four years of age, when a bathroom was within sight, you took advantage of it.

He passed his son's bedroom on the way down the hall and stopped when he heard noises. He wasn't sure at first what they were and then --

-- Soft muffled murmurs and sighs of pleasure emanated from under the door. It was the sound of two people making love. It was his son and that Wilson. They were actually . . .doing the deed . . right there in his sons bedroom.

John House forgot about the bathroom and hurriedly left the apartment again. He expected his son had counted on him not returning for a half hour at least. Just enough time to . . .

John tried to thrust the image from his mind but his sharp military trained memory refused and replayed the sounds over and over, generously supplying him with accompanying images of his son having sex with another man.

John Houses' heart beat a hard rhythm and he swallowed convulsively as he marched back to the bakery. Try as he might he could not shake the mental play of his son making it with a man. Forgetting all about the donuts as well, john looked for a found a park bench. He sat down heavily. He sat for a long time staring at nothing but his feelings for what he had heard.

What would Blyth have done? What would she have felt? Probably considered Gregs' happiness first. John reasoned it as a good guess. Blyth believed the sun rose and set on her sons' smile. Blyth, in her sentimental way, would have come to love that Wilson almost as much as she did her son and unfailingly support their decision to continue their homosexual relationship.

Blyth had met James Wilson almost a decade previous, when his son had been crippled, and liked him immediately and the role he played in her sons life. John shook his head at her female sympathies. Blyth always believed that her son was unhappy and spent years trying to soothe him or fix whatever she perceived as wrong.

"Just leave him alone, Blythie. He doesn't want any coddling." He had said it to her often.

"James is good for Gregory. Gregory needs a friend like him."

"Gregory needs to stop whining."

"He's unhappy."

"He's a grown man."

John had not considered that she might be right - that his son might actually have been unhappy. Grown men don't feel those things. _He_ didn't. Well, most of the time.

Would Blyth have encouraged this, this . . ._thing_ . . between his son and Wilson? John did not know for sure but she would no doubt have delighted that her son had found what she believed to be happiness again. "He seems so . . ._alone_." She had often remarked to him. "Especially since Stacy left."

John had never felt that. Mind you, he'd had Blyth for over forty years. And his career and his war buddies. But didn't his son have associates?

"There is no greater anguish," Blyth had said, "than a mother who knows her child is unhappy or in pain. There is nothing worse."

With embarrassment (for himself or for his son), John recalled the moans and sighs of pleasure he had heard coming from the bedroom, the sound of flesh slapping on flesh and the smacking of lips. He didn't know how to feel about his sons' new life. He didn't know how to accept or even get used to it. He loved his son. All fathers do. A father cares for his son or he shouldn't be a father. He wanted Greg to be happy.

John sat and mused and chewed his cheek over the situation and his sons' life choices until he felt he had reached a kind of neutral state about it. An equilibrium where he didn't like it but thought he might be able to tolerate it because . . .

What choice did he have anyway? Cut Greg from his life? He didn't want that. He sat until a mental state hovering over a place of _non_-feeling gained the upper hand. Not acceptance but not rejection. A grudging _deal-with-it_!

John House returned to his sons' apartment after almost an hour of sitting in the park. One the way back, he stopped off, paid the cashier with apologies and carried the box of drying donuts home. He timed it that way, he told himself, so he and that Wilson would have already. . ._finished_.

XXX

By the time he returned, Wilson and his son were up, showered and dressed and eating some late breakfast.

John House dropped the box of donuts on the coffee table with a careless toss. "Her. Brought us some sweets." He caught Wilson slipping his son a leering sideways glance. "No thanks. Already had some."

It made John House feel, more than anything else, angry. Damn _fruit_! All he was said was. "Right."

With practical experience, House caught his fathers mood right off. Wilson could feel the muscles in his lovers shoulders go tense from across the table. He wondered if a battle of Houses was about to unleash. "Um, I've got to get to the hospital," He muttered. " . . .couple of patients."

Wilson gave House a quick peck on the cheek which John House this time didn't see and House reluctantly watched Wilson go. Then he turned his attention to his father whom he knew was gathering up words to unleash on him about what a terrible disappointment he was. "May as well get it over with." He said to his father.

John House looked at his son sternly from the couch. "Im trying to understand this new . . ._living arrangement_ between you and . . .him, but I just don't."

"You don't have to. What you think doesn't matter."

"I'm your father."

"That's my point."

"You've always disregarded everything I tell you. Always you just know it all, don't you?"

"Your words, not mine."

"You're only going to get hurt."

Greg got up from the table and his father watched the tip of the cane hop-walk around the room. His son seemed to have a second sense about where the cane's rubber foot fit in the many corners and curves of the room. Not once did it bang up against a piece of furniture of scrap the wood floor. The cane seemed to be as intimate a part of his sons' body as his sons legs were.

"If so, it's my business."

"your mother might argue that."

"She's not here."

"She'd speak up if she were."

Greg pulled a beer from the fridge and cracked the tab. "no she wouldn't."

"I knew your mother --"

"-- Mom would never have argued with you while you were in the room." House spoke his mind, a thing he had rarely done in his fathers presence. "But the things she would say once you weren't . . ." He let the implication hang.

"Your mother loved you."

"I know." House took a long swig of the frosty brew. It cooled his throat. He wished it would ice over his rising anger. He had loved her too. He had just never been allowed to say it.

"She would have set you straight anyway." John House added weakly, wishing his wife were here to do just that. She had such a way with words and with their son. With just a gentle finger touch and two or three sentences she could ease the tension between her husband and child and make the room sunny again.

Looking at the delicate features of his sons' face -- the nose and cheekbones, the slightly weak chin and fair coloring -- things that she had given him, reminded him so much of her, John House suddenly choked up. He found himself feeling so terribly empty with her gone.

"Mom was spineless." Was his sons' opinion of his mother.

John Houses' anger flared like gas on a flame. "Don't you _dare_ insult her memory." He stood to make his threat true.

Greg, as he so often had, did not back down this time. "You can't insult a memory, dad. Mom was great people, but she hated confrontation and couldn't hold her own against you at all. The only way she knew how to keep the peace was to give in no matter what it cost her. Me? I'd rather not have the peace."

"Your mother defended you all her life."

Greg answered softly. "Guess I needed defending."

John House suddenly marched across the few feet of space between them and slapped his son across the side of his head as hard as he could.

His son did not fall but he staggered back, momentarily losing his balance even with the cane for support. His face stung and he stared at his dad with what John recognized as condensed hatred. Forty-nine years of hate all rolled into a single look.

John House expected his son to retaliate and raise his cane maybe, or call him names or tell him how much he hated him. But all he did was shake his head and rub the right side of his face above his ear where his fathers strong hand had landed and say, "Feel better?"

XXX

John House quickly settled on an address only a few miles from his sons' apartment block. He was quick to note the misgiving expression on his sons' face over his choice. He thought for the thousandth time during their relationship as father and son that maybe this time . . .

But they never got along. Recent events had underscored that basic truth once again.

"Don't worry." He snapped at Gregory as he signed the lease papers with the uncomfortable landlord looking elsewhere, "You won't see much of me."

He could not read his sons' face. The landlord thanked the old man and pocketed the check for first and last months deposit, gratefully striding away from the table where the angry old and miserable younger man rubbing at his head sat each pretending to be unaffected by the averted gaze of the other.

On the tree lined street, his son climbed back in his car and said to his father standing on the sidewalk in front of his new digs, his words perfunctory, his eyes straight ahead, his tone bleak and weary. "Call me if you need anything."

John House nodded, watching his son drive away. So many regrets. Decades worth. How do two stubborn men repair a lifetime of opposition? John House walked slowly into his new building. If Blyth were here, John thought sadly, she would tell him what to do.

XXX

Wilson was delighted to be back in Gregs' bed and showed him so by peeling off his tee-shirt and unbuttoning his jeans. He laid down full on House and kissed him deeply. House was willing but that night was in pain.

Wilson sighed, rolling off.

"Sorry." House said, probing his right ear.

"What's wrong?" Wilson noticed Houses' preoccupation with his ear.

"Nothing."

Wilson sat up and turned on the light. "Don't say nothing. You had a skull fracture not four months ago. You almost died. What's wrong?"

house decided to confess. Wilson would wheedle it out of him anyway sooner or later. "Uh, we had an argument."

"And how does that translate to a sore -- " Wilsons' eyes almost popped from their sockets. "Do you mean? . . . He _hit _you?" Unbelievable. Wilson wanted to visit John House right then and tell him a thing or two.

"It's no big deal."

"A hit on the head, a head with a healing fracture, is not _nothing_. That son-of-a-bitch."

"Just forget it."

"Right. Okay. Whenever he's here, I want to be -- "

That made House mad. " -- I _don't _need a baby-sitting or a body guard." House threw off the covers and got to his feet, his hand reaching out for his cane which he sometimes left by the bedside. This time it wasn't there. "Dammit!" He said and hobbled out into the hallway in search of his necessary wooden friend and support. Wilson could see House was putting almost no weight at all on his right leg. He wasn't lying about the pain anyway. But --

"House. I'm not trying to diaper you." Wilson caught up to him just as he located his cane and turned back toward the bathroom. "I don't want that wound opened again and I can only hope you don't either."

"No. But he won't do it again."

"What makes you so sure?"

Wilson listened with disbelieving ears at the answer.

"Because he never does it twice."

Wilson heard the up-front and personal experience in Houses' assurance. There were long years of experience in that answer. Wilsons' stomach churned acid. "How long has this been going on between you two? And how bad? Knock down drag-out fights?"

"No."

"No? No to what?"

"I never hit back."

"Jesus, House."

House pushed passed him. "Oh stop the saccharin routine, it's giving me a sugar rush. It's over, it's done. Now move - I need a shower."

Wilson stepped aside, letting his stubborn lover through so he could go scrub away any worry and sluice off the emotion over his father's quick beating to let it be washed down the drain. He was used to Houses' denial of his own faults and problems. He was used to his Vicodin use and drinking. He was not used to the idea of House being a victim of physical abuse. This was all new. Wilson rubbed his face. What kind of a man hits his crippled son? "That son-of-a-bitch."

XXX

"_Good morning Missus House." Doctor Kendall welcomed his new client and waved her to a comfortable chair situated across from his massive, black desk. He could see her delicate, still youthful looking features in its high wax as she seated herself very lady-like to face him, crossing her knees and straightening her skirt._

_With a practiced glance, he took in her polished and perfectly manicured nails with the modest but equally shining wedding ring, the stiff, carefully arranged hairdo, it's soft brown streaked with platinum highlights and her perfectly formed smile. Gleaming white, even teeth told of regular trips to the dentist. Blyth House was a woman who wished to present herself, he surmised, as the perfect wife and mother at every moment. Look perfect and things will be that way. He knew that many people practiced such folly as a life recipe for happiness. It rarely succeeded._

_"Well," He asked with a soft friendly smile, "what brings you to me today?"_

_He saw her expression falter ever so slightly. What awful news she was about to reveal to make that crack in her polished surface he had no idea._

_Suddenly a single tear rolled down her cheek and she angrily wiped it away. Then she took a great breath to steady herself for the hard moment and all those worse moments to follow._

_"My son, he's sixteen now, but a year ago he. . .last year . . .my son tried . . . to kill himself."_

_XXX_

Part III ASAP!


	3. Chapter 3

Wounded Ways

Part III

Pairing: House/Wilson established relationship.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Abuse. Sexual situations. Medical situations. SLASH.

Summary: House family crises, extreme Hurt/comfort, Peripheral character death.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_"I see."_

_The son was obviously alive and not in danger, at least not immediate danger. Though not long in practice, Doctor Kendall was astute enough to know the mother had come for herself. She was terrified, as any parent would be, that her son might try again. And what had she done wrong or failed to do right that she could not have prevented it?_

_"What was the nature of the attempt?" He needed to establish (number one) that an attempt had actually taken place and (number two) was the son himself getting treatment? To learn that he needed the mother to talk about her son initially and what roads had brought the boy to that desperate cry for help, and so the mother to his office trying to comprehend it. Suicide was the hardest language for a parent to learn._

_She would undoubtedly see her childs' wish to kill himself as her fault._

_We shall see. _

_"He borrowed, well, took, his fathers car when John - that's my husband - was stationed home last summer."_

_Kendall recognized the military lingo for "currently no war, send some troops state-side." Kendall nodded._

_"Gregory, my son, . . . the car crashed into an underpass."_

_Kendall did not fail to note that she mentioned the car crashing into the underpass, not her son steering it toward the immovable concrete barrier. Mother House was choosing her words as aesthetically as possible to distance herself from the idea that her son might have died - that indeed had wanted to._

_Kendall needed, however, to understand why her son had tried to kill himself, or if he had not, why she thought so. If he had or had not, that she was here was healthy step. Something awful was disturbing her, enough to bring her to a psychiatrists office on a warm summer day._

_"Perhaps you could fill me in a little on the background - why you think he might have reached the decision to harm himself."_

_Of course she would not speak of realities just yet. The truth was often a painful thing. The truth of her failures as a mother worse still. She would see it as her failure, not as an illness with which her son might be afflicted. _

_Almost all reasons for suicide could be encapsulated in: biological illness or failing that, psychological illness or breakdown, the reasons for which could be: standards for self set far too high to reach - thus disappointment from within or without, prolonged extreme fear/stress/upset with no hope for change, prolonged isolation (loneliness), the varied mental stresses from psychological, physical or sexual abuse, or any combination of these which, over time, might result in pathological self-loathing._

_The goal of self murder was almost always the same: The desire to end pain._

_If he was to help her (and in turn her son), he had to understand which of the causes he might be dealing with._

_"Gregory was always so strong headed." She said. "I can't remember a time where he got along with him."_

_"Him?" The father of course but she had to be the one who said it._

_"At first John, that's my husband, at first he was a good father." Her eyes looked out the window to the sunshine, trees and the over-all normalcy she perceived was out there - all people unlike the way things were going in her own family. "He was so proud to have a son. John bragged about Gregory all the time -- about his birth weight -- over seven pounds -- about how fast he was growing. I had a hard delivery. Almost nineteen hours." She looked back at her doctor. "But Gregory was perfect. Even then my doctor said he would be tall like his father. Maybe even taller. John was under six feet but my father was six-four. We named Gregory after his grandfather - just the middle name: Adrian Gregory House."_

_She looked at Kendall with a unsettling penetrating gaze as though to convince him by her very presence that everything had begun Perfectly Normal in the House home. "Gregory walked early. He almost skipped the crawling stage but he was so wobbly on those thin legs. He spoke early, learn to read by the time he was two. He wrote long-hand by age four."_

_A tiny frown of worried memory pinched her brows togther. "Sometimes his intelligence scared me a little. You know how hard other boys can be on the smart ones. Gregory was a good boy." She summed up what Kendall expected would lead to part of the underlying reason her son had tried to kill himself._

_"But in a way he was just like his father. So stubborn."_

_XXX_

The next day at work, just after lunch, House opened Wilsons' door and poked his head in. "I need your muscle."

Wilson looked up from his cubic foot of paperwork, not minding the interruption or the request (as studious as he was about doing his billing forms, it really was the white collar pulp version of water torture. He grudgingly had to admit to a kindling of understanding over Houses' nearly pathological hatred of it. House regularly went to all manner of personal inconveniences to avoid it), but somewhat irked at its delivery. "Please." He counseled.

House frowned at him in mock confusion. "Thank you?" He said. House came all the way on the room and closed the door. "And before this gets any more confusing - _tonight_. My dads' stuff is in storage. You need to move it."

"Why me?"

"Because it's you I'm talking to."

"Why can't he get a moving man?"

"You're a man."

Wilson decided to drop it. "How much stuff?"

"Boxes of stuff. Fifty, sixty . . ."

Wilsons' shoulders sagged.

"Okay, okay." House relented. "Ten boxes."

Wilson leaned back and chewed his pen. "What are you willing to do for it?"

House shook his head, also in mock confusion. "I thought I'd cheer you on and do nothing. That work for you?"

Wilson stood and walked around his desk. He gripped the arm rests on either side of House, closed the distance and kissed him. "Not remotely."

Afterward, House licked then smacked his lips. "Hmm." He fixed his best diagnostic face on him. "Are you _gay_?"

Wilson straightened. "Fine. Tonight: dinner. After: boxes moved. Later: sex."

House frowned again, standing to leave. "That's a lousy schedule. What am I supposed to do until the fun starts?"

Wilson closed the door after his lover. After House told him what happened between his father and him, he did not relish spending time with John House or helping him in any way. But for now he would keep the peace.

He wondered what he would have done had it happened while he was in the room but dismissed the speculation. Had he been in the room, nothing would have happened. Abusers hide their true nature. He had a thought and dialed House on his private cell phone.

"_House."_

"You're supposed to say "hello"."

_"Telling them who I am right off saves the annoying "Is this doctor House?" question_."

"Hello is polite."

"_But unnecessary. Exactly three people call me on my cell phone. Cuddy, you and my mom. All three of you know who I am and I know all three of you. I know when it's Cuddy because she has a lower voice than you. I know when it's you because you sound nothing like my mom, though you occasionally smell the same, and I know it can't be mom because she's--"_

Wilson heard a slightly pregnant pause, then House championed through with his joke, "_gone to that great bridge club in the sky where I hear they have a pretty terrific long distance plan."_

Wilson silently cheered on Houses' handling of his mothers' death. As distant as he had been from his father, as Wilson was now learning, House had been that close to his mother despite recently hardly having seen her. "How is your head?"

"_Ready and waiting, you hunk."_

"Charming. I mean, where he, . . . your dad, . . ?"

_"Oh. Fine, fine. Couldn't be better. Open fist."_

"This isn't funny, House."

_"Whoops -- patient. Gotta go."_

Wilson heard the click and closed his phone. There was nothing he could do. But he would do whatever it took to ensure it didn't happen again by explaining a few things to John House, even if he had to do it behind his lovers' back.

XXX

"Greg had a concussion recently." Wilson decided to keep it friendly and unwrapped coffee mugs. Moving boxes had quickly morphed into unwrapping and putting away their contents. "Did he tell you he was in a bus accident?"

John House arranged glasses in a cupboard with military order and precision. "No." He glanced sideways toward Wilson but not directly at him. "When was this?"

"Five months ago. A pretty bad concussion. He had a skull fracture, too, on the right side of his head."

John House paused ever so slightly in the regular movements of his hands. "He never tells me anything. He's okay though?"

Wilson watched John House carefully while John House didn't look his way even once. "Almost. There should be no complications providing he experiences no _more_ trauma to his head." Wilson stopped his neighborly work and folded his arms across his chest. He leaned against the counter, crossing his legs, recognizing it as a textbook defensive stance. He didn't care. "Oh, say like a hard _slap_ or something."

At that John House looked at Wilson, sharply just once, then quickly went back to his box of cups and dishes. "He came crying to you huh?"

"No. I dragged it out of him when I saw the redness and the shame."

"The only thing Greg ever understood was discipline."

"When a person's never offered any other options . . ."

John House pointed at him with a newspaper wrapped sugar bowl. "Don't you tell me how to talk to my son."

"If you had _talked_, I wouldn't be."

"You have no idea how stubborn he is."

Wilson smiled indulgently at that. "You have no idea how ridiculous it is that you think I have no idea. I've known him for sixteen years, worked with him for ten. I _live _with the man."

"I _raised_ him. He was a smart little kid. Too damn smart for his own good --"

"--Every parent jealous of their own child says that. Maybe he was just too smart for you."

"What the hell would you know about raising children, fairy?"

Wilson bristled. "And every person in denial resorts to name calling when they run out of excuses."

John House turned his head away and back to his boxes. "I'll finish here." For a few more seconds, Wilson watched John House bury himself in his boxes like he buried himself in his belief that nothing wrong had occurred. "Thanks for the help."

Wilson heard the dismissal. He unfolded himself from the counter and placed his hands on his hips. "I don't give a damn what you think of me. All you need to know is I love your son. I know when he's upset, sad, embarrassed, I know how he brushes his teeth and what magazines he takes to the John." When Wilson felt he had made his point enough, he walked to the door, trying to gather the tactful wording on the way. There was none.

He settled on "Don't ever touch him again."

XXX

Wilson stripped off Houses' tee-shirt with urgent hands and fumbled at his belt and jeans zipper with uncoordinated fingers. Finally the clothing obeyed and slid down Houses' muscled legs. Leaning with one hand on Wilsons' shoulder to accommodate his right leg which would only move so fast, House stepped out of them. Then he pulled Wilson back to his feet and gathered his face in his hands, fighting for a mouth-hold on Wilsons' hungry lips.

Wilson had not touched House for over a week and he was nearly crazy with desire. He pushed House to the bed, actually easing him down with strong arms until House was under him and unable to move. Wilson smiled down at him wickedly. This was his favorite way to sexually seduce House. Corner him, control him then drive him sexually mad. Wilson loved House like this -- aching with need but completely vulnerable. Wilson felt that these could very well be the only moments in Houses' life where he let down his guard and handed the safety and care of his heart over to another human being.

Wilson loved being that human. Normally he would show it by hours of teasing, then necking followed by drawn out body surfing. But tonight his loins screamed at him to cum as soon as possible, preferably as deep inside House as he could shove. But his cock would not wait and instead Wilson lubed them both up, delighted to see House was as hard as he by that point (House had also clearly missed the intimate part of their association while John House had been occupying the bedroom), and rubbed their cocks together urgently, all the while deep tonguing his prone lover until House was forced to turn his head and come up for air.

It was at that point they came, not together but almost, Wilson crying out and thrusting up and down crazily on him. "Ah, baby, -- oh fuck. Fuck! House . . .you sweet goddamn _fuck_ . . . o-h-h-h- . . . goddamn. . ."

Wilson clutched at Houses' arms and kissed him while his cock eased back and stopped twitching.

Finally, sticky with sweat and semen, Wilson went to the bathroom to wring out and fetch cloths for them both for clean-up. House was often sleepy after sex and Wilson could see his eyes slowly closing while he wiped at himself.

But he was also almost always in pain after too. Wilson brought him a Vicodin and a glass of water which items House swallowed and drank, handing the glass back to Wilson.

Wilson lay down on the bed beside him while House crawled under the covers, laying flat out with a tired but satisfied sigh. "So you missed me. Or at least," He nodded to his crotch. "him."

Wilson smiled. "Yeah. I ought to bottle it, take it to work with me." He rolled on his side and , leaning on one elbow, wished House had not covered himself up so quickly. He liked looking at him naked. "I don't suppose it's detachable?"

House smiled a bit. "I'll look into it. I do have a plastic surgeon working for me."

"Just wishful thinking. Can you take those blankets off?"

House shook his head. Wilson knew it wasn't the scar. Not anymore. For the first few weeks when their relationship turned physical, House had insisted on the lights being out. But Wilson insisted even stronger that, just once, they be left on.

After that House forgot about the ugliness of his scar. Wilson had caressed both his legs equally and even forgot about it himself. It just didn't matter.

House turned on his side too. Toward Wilson but he did so, ready to go to sleep, snuggling down with his pillow. At least he didn't wear pajamas anymore. Wilson loved House in the raw. Wilson wasn't really tired. Sex made him spring to life, before, during and -- in a different way -- after. He kissed House on the cheek. House was already asleep and didn't stir.

Wilson slipped out of bed to find a snack. Turning on the television he surfed until he found a passable program about Big Machines, settling in with a bag of corn-chips.

The phone rang. Wilson picked it up to see who it might be before answering. He hoped it was a patient for either of them. Tonight was their first evening together since Houses' father had moved out.

And who would it be but . . .? "Hello." Wilson answered.

"Is Greg there?"

Not even a hello. "He's sleeping."

"I found a few things of . . his mothers he might want. Things she probably wouldn't want me to throw out."

Wilson idly wondered what they might be. Knowing John House, they were probably things about as sentimental as floor wax or a box of assorted safety pins. "I can come by and pick them up." Wilson offered, curious what John Houses' answer would be.

There was a pause. "Fine. I'm going to the Lodge around eight-thirty. Come by before then." He hung up without another word.

Wilson replaced the receiver and wondered what sorcerer had made him offer. Whatever the stuff was, it could easily have been picked up by House tomorrow or any other day. "Shit."

XXX

Recalling the suite number, Wilson knocked on John Houses' apartment door.

John opened it and beckoned him in with a nod of his head. It was an eerie echo of a mannerism he had seen countless times in House.

"Thanks." Wilson stepped into the apartment but made no move to venture further.

John House, though, had other ideas. "It's in the living room. Leave your shoes on."

Wilson was glad for that at least. He had to go in but he didn't have to get cozy and stay for tea.

john House pointed to a box with some ten assorted items in it. Some were obviously personal things Wilson could see House appreciating from his mother. A photo album and a collection of science books written for young children. A G.I. Joe in the original box. A picture of Blythe House herself holding up her very small boy. Wilson was fascinated to see for the first time, House as a child of - he guessed - four.

Long face but still apple-cheeked with baby fat. Huge, bright blue eyes and a child grin of delight that mirrored his mothers. A head of brown, very curly hair.

Wilson felt a little choked up seeing House in such a typically domestic, completely average, perfectly adorable scene. "Cute little buggar." He muttered. He recalled his own childhood with the nose and the mass of messy hair no haircut could keep under control for long. Thankfully he had grown into his nose and passed through a stage of cuteness himself (though much later than most) before settling down to good looking but with a lean to average.

House had gone from adorable to cute - he stayed cute for a long, long time if Wilson remembered from other pictures he'd seen of him in his twenties and thirties - then somehow had entered an endless age of _Scruff and Scowl. This is my look -- get used to it!_

Wilson was jerked from his muse by John House. "How is Greg?"

Wilson had almost forgotten where he was. "Oh, uh, he's fine. He's good." He wasn't about to offer delicious details on just _how_ good, but amused himself with the shock that would register on John Houses' face if he did.

"Work okay?"

Wilson knew he was not asking about the Oncology department. "No urgent case at the moment."

"I hear he's very good at . . .what he does."

Wilson clued into that John House was asking after his son by asking his questions via his sons' room mate instead of the son. It was a weird form of communication. Maybe that's how it was done in the House family? Maybe that was how it had always been done?

"He's a genius."

Wilson was suddenly glad he came. He was very curious to learn what John House actually thought about his son and what he did. "Really?" John House didn't exactly doubt him he didn't think. At least not entirely. But the father did look a little surprised by the answer. "A genius?"

Wilson played it for all it was worth. He nodded, feigning his own surprise that John House hadn't been privy to such common knowledge. "Yes. He's well known through-out the medical community. People come to him from all over the world. Europe, South America. Pretty much from every continent."

John seemed to be mulling that over. Finally, he nodded, accepting it, Wilson could only assume, as the truth.

"Well. Thanks for picking this stuff up."

Wilson gathered up the box of keepsakes. "No problem."

John House actually walked him to the door. Wilson thought maybe he ought to offer a handshake but thought better of it.

"See ya'." John said.

He was trying to be civil today and Wilson decided to go along with it. "Yeah. Goodbye."

"Is my son . . .?"

Wilson turned back at the doorknob question. "sorry?"

"Is Greg . . .all right?" John House scratched at his right ear. "I didn't . . . hurt him, did I? The ear . . .or head?"

John House did have a heart. And he'd had thirty years longer than his son learning to hide it. "He's fine." Wilson said it plainly. It was the truth.

John nodded again. "I see. Well, thanks."

Wilson nodded and left. As he walked to his car, he understood that the box had been an excuse to glean information about Greg. Play a game but pretend it's not a game and if they find out it's a game, don't tell the rules. Or better yet, change the rules. Even delete the rules. Whatever works to learn what you want to know.

Wilson blew out a stress relieving lung full of air. House Senior was so like House Junior it scared him.

Wilson felt sorry for Greg and this cool, muted man he called Dad. Wilson reaffirmed in himself that he would try to never be like that. He wanted, hoped, that what he brought to Houses' life was warmth and contentment.

Despite the good that just maybe could come from House and his father living in such close proximity and just maybe learning to talk to each other like father and son instead of angry neighbors, Wilson suddenly wished John House had not moved to Princeton.

Between his leg that couldn't tolerate the winter chill and his disposal to getting colds and 'flu's more frequently than anyone he knew, the last thing House needed was more coldness in his life.

Wilson suddenly felt a tingling _Spidey_ _sense_. "Oh boy."

XXX

Part IV ASAP!


	4. Chapter 4

Wounded Ways

Part IVf

Pairing: House/Wilson established relationship.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Abuse. Sexual situations. Medical situations. SLASH.

Summary: House family crises, extreme Hurt/comfort, Peripheral character death.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

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"You're going out to a bar with your dad?" Wilson was a little shocked.

"Yeah."

"You. Your dad . . ."

House slipped on a pair of comfortable, black jeans. "Me. Dad. Bar. What comes next? Come on. . ." He held two fingers an inch apart, "you're _this_ close."

Wilson smelled disaster. "When was the last time you took him for _lunch_? I'm going to guess liberally and say - oh - _never_. When was the last time you took _me_ to lunch? And now you're going to . . .paint the town?"

House pulled on a favorite grey tee-shirt. "You're the one who keeps saying that I should learn to understand my father. How did you put it? _Appreciate our differences_?"

"You've never even tried to get _Cuddy_ into bar, and she's nice."

"But the wrong food group. I'm into kiwi's and zucchinis now."

"Right." Wilson shook his head, hearing the father-son battle advancing on the city. He could smell the gun powder. "At least let me go with you. I can referee."

"What's got you so spooked? Afraid he'll turn me into a pumpkin?"

Wilson was more afraid of the pumpkin colored bruises House might be sporting once he did come home. "If he so much as touches you --"

"--I promise I'll run home to tattle." He slipped on and tied his black and white sneakers. "You're sexy when you clench your soft, dishwater hands into those tiny fists."

Wilson smiled. "Don't you forget it."

House gathered up his car keys but then glanced thoughtfully at his helmet. He squinted one eye at Wilson. "Think Dad would mind piggy backing?"

Wilson stared at House watching for signs of meaning. "Was that a real question, a question slash joke, or just a really gross gay incest sexual reference?"

"Doors one, two and three, Bob." House didn't pick up the helmet. "Relax. I'll be home by my last drink, or when I've gone blind -- which ever comes first."

Wilson turned his lips to the cheek-peck House tried to give him. House rolled his eyes. "You _are_ gay, aren't you? How long have you been hiding that?" He closed the door after himself.

XXX

Father House requested a particular bar, one Son House had never been to. It was smelly and dark and filled with noisy, angry men sporting thickening middles to go with their thickening necks. Most were in their fifties or older.

"What is this place?" House asked his father. He was not referring to the name displayed across the dirty front window - "Charlies".

John House ordered two beers. "My buddy told me about it. It's just a bar. A lot of ex-military types come here."

It was open to the public but had the feel of a private bar and definitely military oriented.

House tried to suppress an "I should have known" expression. He gulped his beer, anxious for the liquid to calm the knot of tension in his guts. He hated making nice but if his father was going to be living nearby, he may as well try to deal. John House was the only family he had left.

House studied his fathers' face when ever his fathers' attention was elsewhere. It was a good face. Strong lines, deep set grey eyes and thin mouth given to shades of natural in-born humor. It was difficult to picture the younger man he occasionally looked at in the family photo albums he had at home shoved in the bedroom closet, in his fathers' greying hair and sagging face. His dad had been a powerhouse in his youth. As strong as an ox and twice as --

"What are you doing this weekend?"

House almost stopped in mid-swallow. He didn't have an answer. Didn't know how to answer. "Um, I, we're, . . not sure." He shrugged. "Probably nothing."

His fathers' stiffly formal face faltered slightly at the word _we're_ but he recovered quickly. "Want to go fishing?"

House imagined himself stumbling around on a riverbank with a cane, a rod and a tackle box wearing a checkered shirt and wading boots the size of golf bags. He shuddered. Raising his cane for his father to see, "Sorry." He said.

John House nodded with an open mouth like he had forgotten. "Oh. Oh, yeah. Sorry."

"Doesn't matter."

"How're ya' getting on with that?"

House wasn't positive he understood, then realised his dad was referring to his bum leg. The question had been weirdly phrased, as though the infarction had happened a month ago and not eight years past.

It was his fathers' way of feigning interest in something he had little interest in. It was also a little insulting. John House cared that his son was a cripple because it bothered him that his son acted handicapped. As though if his lame son would just wish hard enough, the pain would go away and he could be _normal_ again.

House would love nothing better than see that fantasy fulfilled, but it was just never going to happen. "Limping like a champion."

"Ever hear from Stacy?"

House shook his head. "No reason to. She got married." It still hurt to think it. Worse to say it aloud. Even after years and years, it was a wound. Stacy had loved him. Her words still crossed his memory once in a while during bad weeks when everything he'd like to forget came back as clear as sunshine on a cloudless day: "_You are brilliant and funny and a surprise. And sexy. But we can't be together._" Then the words that stung the deepest: "_I was lonely with you. With Mark, there's room for me." _

He wondered if Wilson was lonely?

"Oh." His dad said in answer to his previous answer. House felt his knot of tension inflate. He was suddenly filled with regret at accepting his fathers invitation to go out. Nothing had changed and he was stupid to have let himself believe otherwise. Two strangers would be having a more animated discussion than the robotic rapport was being painfully chewed out across the thick wood table. Even as two complete unknowns, they could have at least discussed sports, their jobs, their bosses . . .

As father and son, they had nothing to say to one another.

-

-

-

"Whad'you say to me?" John House had imbibed a few too many but, unlike his son, couldn't hold his liquor half as well, something his marine buddies used to tease him about. Beefy John House. Big as a house (in those days) but the tummy of a mouse.

Gregory House, on the other hand, who remained wiry and thin until he was in his thirties, could drink almost anyone under the table.

Not that Doctor Gregory House didn't get stinking, falling down drunk, he did, it just took massive amounts of alcohol to accomplish it. For the most part, he was a happy drunk too.

Gregory was about four beers passed his father when his relaxed mood was turned over to sour.

His fathers' humor, after beer number six, had turned a dark corner and sank to the lowest denominator. Army grown, homophobic slurs. His dads' unending string of homosexual jokes had about filled him with enough acid that House was ready to vomit all over the table.

"Why did the first fag eat the second fag at the seconds fags' wake?"

House didn't want to hear any more but John House thoughtfully offered the answer anyway.

"He wanted to feel him slide out of his ass just one more time."

Gregory House, trying to keep his hate and stomach under control, leaned over the drink-ringed table and managed to articulate, "You're embarrassing yourself."

John House, shoulders around his ears in an effort to support his bobbing head, frowned sharply at his offspring. "Ah, come on, son. Admit it's funny. I mean, don't tell me you and that Clark Kent tinkerbell actually --" John Houses' eyes and brain achieved some measure of clarity when he saw his sons' unchanged expression.

"Naw." Father House slurred. "You and him . . .you don't . . ." He paused, his insides turned over and over while his drunken imagination provided image after image of his son being driven into a mattress by another mans' hardened cock. "That's disgusting. It's _un-natural_. I can't believe you'd let another man--"

House stood up. "Going home." He pulled six twenties out of his wallet and left them on the table to pay for the drinks and his fathers cab ride home. "Nice chatting." He paused for an inaudible burp. "Nice to know you're as relentlessly persistent and unchanging as the herpes virus."

But John House was not one to be put off just because someone was abandoning the conversation. He called out loudly enough for several nearby tables to overhear. "I'm ashamed that a child of mine's raising his ass-cheeks to a fudge packing faggot!"

It was loud enough and hurtful enough to stop Houses' retreating limp for only a second or two before he made good his escape out the door.

When he stepped into the outside, night air, it's freshness sobered him up enough to realize there was no way in hell he ought to drive. But it was just passed the dinner and a movie hour and there wouldn't be an available cab for hours.

House, quickly forgetting about his father and his fathers off-color humor (and over-all disgust with his only son), stared at his car for a few minutes, debating his options. Feeling the keys in his pocket opposed to the estimated twenty-eight block walk home - impossible on his leg - he decided he could for a while just sit in the car. He could even snooze there until morning or at least until he was sober enough to navigate a fifteen hundred pound vehicle through the dark streets.

House fell in behind the drivers' seat, tossing his cane over to the passengers' side. It jammed up against the middle hump, it's curved end hooked over the automatic stick shift and it's worn rubber tip on the floor near his foot. It settled in to stay. Whatever.

He didn't care. House closed his eyes, leaning back against the whip-lash preventative head rest, his brain too tired and too addled by the memory of his fathers' twisted face to think about calling Wilson for a ride.

But what if his father stumbled outside and saw him still sitting there? Then he'd _have_ to drive him home, which would mean more time spent in the mans' unpleasant company.

"Fuck that." House turned the key.

XXX

Wilson passed by Houses' office, surprised that he wasn't in yet. But it was early and he probably had taken his father home and crashed there. He hadn't called to say so but then maybe he decided not to bother calling home to wake him up just to say _I won't be home, go back to sleep_. And it was his day off anyway. Maybe dad and son were catching breakfast somewhere.

Wilson entered through the doors of his office to find Cuddy leaning over his desk, writing something on a sticky note pad.

She looked up and stopped writing.

Wilson paused at her serious, sober stare. "What?"

She walked over, handing him the note she had just completed. "He's at Princeton General." Knowing Wilson would understand her unspoken reference.

Wilson read the note. All he gleaned from it was Houses' name and the words _head injury_. "Oh, Christ." He whispered.

"It was a car accident." She clarified further. "A single car accident."

XXX

_"What pre-empted the fist instance of abuse?"_

_Blythe cleared her throat to cover her slight confusion. "Ahem. Excuse me?"_

_"What happened the first time you knew that your husband was hurting Gregory?"_

_"I don't . . .well of course I couldn't be sure of the very first time. The one I remember was just before John shipped out after training camp. We moved from Foster Field - that was an air corp camp -- there was a residence for new families nearby. By then Gregory was four and we'd rented a small apartment in El Paso, Texas. Two weeks later, John was sent off to Korea."_

_"So there was stress for him and you. New place, young child and your husband would soon be absent, maybe for months."_

_"Yes. Yes. You see, there was so much going on. Anyone would be bound to lose their temper once in a while." She smiled down at her folded hands as though trying to convince herself of the excuse and not just Kendall._

_"What happened?"_

_"Gregory refused to mind. Always, he refused. It seems he did it just because he could. I heard Johns' voice getting harsh with him when Gregory refused to stay in bed. I would put him to bed and as soon as the lights were out and the door closed, Gregory would climb out of his bed, turn on his lamp and start reading or taking something apart. Once or twice he crawled out his window - we lived on the ground floor - and go exploring through the back yard. He never went far, he just seemed so . . .restless all the time."_

_"You said he was unusually intelligent."_

_"Yes. Yes, he was."_

_"That's often the case with exceptional children."_

_"I suppose . . ." She answered vaguely. "John found Gregory in his footlocker. The one he had painstakingly packed the night before. The things he would take with him, you see. Gregory had removed everything and was busy trying to unfold his army knife and . . ." She swallowed. "John was tired that night. They had marched fifteen miles that day and studied maps and charts and John was just so very tired. Gregory tried his patience every minute . . ."_

_Kendall watched as the mother skirted and danced around the core of her answer. Soon, there would be no turning away from it._

_"John had tried spanking Gregory - that never worked for long."_

_Kendall merely nodded. Corporal punishment rarely did._

_"So he . . .filled the bath-tub . . ." Blythe House stopped, struggling with the next words. _

_Kendall was a pretty good guesser. "Was the water quite cold?"_

_Her mouth tight, she nodded once with a hand to her throat as though the memory of it was choking off her speech. "Yes. And, um, . . .and . . . ice . . ." She could hardly get the last word to leave her lips, "- cubes."_

_Kendall raised one imperceptible eyebrow. "I see."_

_Blythe hurriedly assured him that , in fact, he did not see. "It wasn't for long." She explained breathlessly. "It's not like he tried to drown our son. Don't be ridiculous."_

_Kendall hadn't even suggested it. _

_Blythe rushed ahead to minimize and dismiss what her husband had done to his four year old child. "Gregory was impossible! John let Gregory sit in there for a few minutes while he . . .explained the behavior that was expected of him, and then he let the water drain out." She straightened her skirt and took a calming breath, gathering every fragile thread of her person and tucking them back into their assigned places. "Then I would dry and dress Gregory and send him off to bed."_

_Kendall very carefully did not react to the abuse Blythe House had just explained with good southern breeding and proper decorum. A child of four, little more than a baby, is stripped naked, pushed down into a bath tub of freezing water (loaded with ice cubes for that good arctic feel), in order to emphasize to him the proper way he ought to behave. _

_Kendall was often amazed at the creative ways abusers invented to hurt or control their victims. The ice-bath method would have left no sign of injury or trauma what-so-ever. Not the physical kind. Physical injuries are often easiest to repair. _

_Psychological abuse, like exerting control via fear of pain or punishment was often so deeply interred, they were difficult to locate, never mind treat. Such abuse against a child so young would most likely have become woven into the very fabric of the childs' base-line personality. _

_"Our time is up for today, Misses House. But I think next week we might talk again? Perhaps the same day? same time?"_

_"Do you really think, . . I'm not sure . . ."_

_Vacillating was routine after a first confession of ugliness. So much ugliness was fear-inspiring to the confessor and difficult to look at - even objectively. But almost impossible when one was the co-conspirator in such an abuse of power like the torture of a child. _

_Naturally Blythe House did not see herself as such at this point. But if she was true to her ability to examine self, that admittance (and that she was in his office was a good, honest first step), would eventually emerge. The ugliness on that day would become like staring into the abyss and, like Neitchie wrote, the abyss staring back. No ones comes as face to face with oneself so profoundly as when he (or she) learns what it is he is willing to allow, or willing to stand by and watch regarding the afflictions brought against another in the name of perpetuating personal conscience or at least the appearance of such. Personal ethics, belief of God, belief in ones own morality, all can dissipate like morning mist when confronted by the truth of ones failings as a caring human being. _

_Civilization sat on the doorstep of a world-wide madhouse and leaving things undone and unsaid, in the long run, was easier and so very much prettier._

_Kendall gently encouraged, "Please. I'm sure we can get to the bottom of some of the things troubling you."_

_Suggestions as to the underlying causes of why her stomach would now be queasy and her heart thumping in shame, if for now kept undefined, would not so readily frighten her away. _

_She smiled ever so properly. "Of course, Doctor."_

XXX

"Where is Doctor Gregory House being treated?"

Wilson, informed which floor and room, made his way there as quickly as possible. He wanted to see House first before the father had time to cab it over from his apartment. He had asked Wilson for a ride but Wilson assured him it was better for Gregs' physical (and emotional) health in the long run if he saw him as quickly as he could in order to better assess his condition. "I'll meet you at the hospital. Just ask at Main Admitting, I'll leave my name there."

Wilson wanted to know what they were up against this time and from where Houses' life-line was dangling.

He looked better than expected. A short, pudgy physician with a bad come-over was already in the room. He turned when Wilson entered. Wilson shook the offered hand.

"I'm Doctor Burkett, the attending."

"I'm Doctor Wilson, I work with Doctor House." Wilson put his hand out and Burkett placed Houses' chart in it. Wilson read over it the same time as Burkett brought him up to date on Houses' condition.

"The EMT's on scene said he hit his head on the windshield and from the huge lump and gash, I believe them. He also suffered a small crack in his sternum and two broken ribs. His left knee is swollen so we'll be sending him for an X-Ray as soon-"

"-Doctor House suffered a skull fracture several months ago. If you don't mind, I'd like an MRI to be sure it hasn't been re-injured; make certain he hasn't suffered any complications."

"Absolutely. The tox' screen showed a blood alcohol level of point fourteen. He was way over the limit. He should not have been behind the wheel. The police recovered a vial of pills at the scene. Vicodin." Burkett nodded to Houses' right leg. "I'm assuming for the old thigh injury?"

At Wilsons' nod, Burkett continued. "The worry is the level of drugs he was on. The pills were prescribed only four days ago but the bottle is half empty. That's nearly --"

" --I know, I'm the prescribing physician."

Burkett nodded, obviously already aware though his expression suggested he considered it border-line malpractice to be prescribing for someone who was clearly a friend, but about that he said nothing.

"He'll begin to detox. The pills have been long term?"

Wilson nodded again. "Almost ten years."

"We don't dare give him anything but small dose Percodan if he wakes up in pain. Is he on anything else?"

Wilson thought for a moment. He had seen House smoke an occasional joint. He knew his friend had shot up morphine in the past during a period when his leg was especially bad, and House drank of course, quite a bit. He suspected House had also dropped acid once or twice during his time at Plainsboro. He didn't think House was doing any of that now. At least, not while he had been living with him. "No."

"Is there a wife or girlfriend we should call?"

Wilson cleared his throat. "I called his dad . . ." He thought about keeping the knowledge that he was Houses' special friend to himself but then he was also Houses' medical proxy and he didn't want to play the game of Don't Touch House If Anyone Can See bullshit, so "I'm the one who's . . ."

Burkett caught the idea. "I see." He hung Houses' chart back on the hook at the foot of the bed. "Well, they'll be by in a few minutes to take him to the MRI." Burkett took out his prescription pad, tore off a page, drew a line through the pre-printed side and scribbled on the back of it. "Page me directly if you need anything."

Wilson accepted it and nodded his thanks.

When Burkett was gone, he went to the head of Houses' sick bed, leaned his arms wearily on the railing and stared down at his friend. "Driving drunk." He sighed. "Your father/son evening out must have been a hoot."

XXX

Part V ASAP!


	5. Chapter 5

Wounded Ways

Part V

Pairing: House/Wilson established relationship.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Abuse. Sexual situations. Medical situations. SLASH.

Summary: House family crises, extreme Hurt/comfort, Peripheral character death.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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House was not in as bad a shape as the bandages made him look. Still Wilson took the limp hand in his own two and kissed the back of it. He did not sit down yet, knowing John House was on his way in via taxi and Wilson wanted to intercept him before he made it as far as this room.

And he wanted to question the man on why Greg would be driving drunk and, most especially, why _alone_ when his dad was supposed to be with him?

Wilson turned when he heard the distinct low timber of John House and met him several steps down from Gregs' private recovery room.

John House looked passed Wilson like he wasn't of any importance other than to tell him what he wanted to know.

"Where's my son? What happened? They tell me --"

"-- Greg was in a car accident." Wilson said, trying not to allow suspicion and anger hold sway over compassion. So far they were toe to toe. "He's injured but not severely. We're most worried about his skull fracture."

"That was months ago, you said he was okay now."

"He's as okay as anyone would be. This wasn't a sprained wrist he had -- a cracked skull doesn't heal exactly overnight."

John House tried to walk passed him, but Wilson held up a hand, being careful not to touch the man. "Wait a second. Greg was alone in that car. I want to know what happened at the bar or restaurant or where-ever the hell it was you took him."

John House frowned, a little puzzled by Wilsons' interrogation and also a little angry at his trying to block his way. "We went to a bar. We had a few drinks and I don't see as it's any of your damn business."

Wilson was not going to be put off or pushed. "I love him. It's my business."

"He's _my_ son. Get out of my way." John House pushed passed and Wilson let him go.

"Why was he alone in the car, _dad_?" Wilson let his voice, rather than his feet, follow him. "Did you say something to him? Do something?" Wilson felt his blood pressure rise, and the man hadn't even answered him yet. "If you touched him . . ."

But John House ignored him and entered Gregs' sick room.

Wilson decided it would be prudent to follow.

John stood by his sons' bed.

Greg had a bandage across his forehead and his ribs were wrapped tight. Other than a sheen of sweat on his face indicated a slight fever, his vitals were good.

Wilson knew John House would not know what the numbers meant on the monitor so he explained. "He'll be okay. Badly bruised head. Two cracked ribs." He said gently. May as well hold off on the battle royal for the time being. "The car might be a write off though."

John House scratched the back of one hand with the other. He appeared, if anything, worried.

Maybe he wasn't just the heartless ass Wilson hoped he was. If that were the case, Wilson might just have to, for Gregs' sake, try to start liking the man. But thus far the good dad column wasn't showing a lot of black.

Wilson walked nearer but to the other side of the bed. "He's going to be okay."

The elder House visibly relaxed. "We had an argument."

Wilson nodded, more to himself than to John House, keeping his eyes fixed on his unconscious lovers' face. If he pretended, House was just sleeping. An argument. No kidding.

Wilson could guess as to the topic. He looked over at John House and waited until the older man looked up at him. Until he met his eyes.

"I do love him, you know." Wilson said softly. "It is possible, you know, . . .I mean, for one man to love another."

John House didn't acknowledge the statement nor argue it. He only sighed.

Wilson looked back down at Greg, not caring whether John House accepted, resented or hated him for being in love with his son.

It didn't matter one way or the other. With John House watching, Wilson leaned over and kissed Gregs' bandaged forehead. _The only thing that's impossible is for me __**not**__ to love him. _

XXX

_"Was that all that happened to Gregory? Are you sure you're not leaving out some detail you thought unimportant? Not knowing everything could hamper my ability to help you."_

_Blythe House smoothed her skirt, perfectly in place already. "Sometimes John would, well, make my son . . .camp out in the back yard."_

_The words __**camp out**__ cut from her throat like two wacks of an ax. It was as though their resonance could physically kill her._

_Kendall was curious about what was hiding behind the euphemism. "Tell me about it? We're these camp outs something his father did with him?"_

_"N-no. It was when Gregory . . misbehaved. John thought it good for him to be sent to the backyard. Kind of like boot camp. Not harmful, but disciplinary." She looked at him with impatience. "It was good for Gregory."_

_Kendall nodded. "Under what circumstances would Gregory be camping out? What behaviors would have required the discipline?"_

_"You mean what did he do to deserve punishment?" She answered her own question. "Because he wouldn't mind. Or if he forgot something very important, like promising to clean his room all week but never doing it. Or stealing the neighbors lawn mower and taking it apart."_

_"So Gregory would be sent to the back yard with . . .what? A blanket and hot soup?" _

_Blythe House was staring passed Doctor Kendall to something else. Only a vision she could partake of. "John would send him out with his army blanket and without supper. Gregory would have to sleep out on the lawn the whole night by himself. Until breakfast."_

_Kendall felt the familiar tightness in his chest he always got whenever he heard a story of child abuse. This particularly inventive type of mental torture and emotional isolation would have had quite serious consequences for the one suffering it. Kendall wondered how long it had gone on before either the father ceased and desisted, or the son got old enough to himself stop dear old dad._

_"And you would bring him in?" Kendal guessed. Often the child is harshly disciplined by one and gently protected by the other, adding to the childs' confusion. He says he loves me as he's freezing my skin with ice-cubes. She wraps me in her loving arms and says it hurts my father to hurt me more than it hurts me. It must be my fault. Im not really hurt, right. I'm not deserving somehow. I'm flawed, wrong, unfinished. I am here with them only because of pity. As parents they speak the truth and tell me who I am and my worth. _

_Therefor I am worth almost nothing._

_Though he was Gregorys' father, he was just a soldier, no more memorable than the last, no more important as the next in a long line of soldiers. John House did not know where his troop ended and his family began. Kendall nodded gently as mother House described the condition of her child after a particularly long and cold night in early November._

_"We were living in South Dakota then. And it was cold that fall, you know, the way it gets there sometimes. Gregory had done something. I don't remember what but John sent him marching outside with a blanket. I knew Gregory would be all right. The blanket was thick. One hundred percent wool."_

_Blythe bit her lip. "But it began to snow and I could feel the temperature was dropping. "It's too cold for a sleep out, John. He can go to bed without supper instead."_

_"He's too skinny as it is. He'll be all right."_

_"Was he all right?"_

_Blythe turned her eyes away from empty space and looked at her doctor again. "Her didn't speak for a few days. I mean not that he couldn't, he just didn't. I was so afraid . . ."_

_Kendal kept his voice very gentle and even. "Of what?"_

_"That he, . . that there was . . something wrong with him. That he was . . .changing."_

_Kendal heard the unsaid words: Blythe was afraid their son was being hurt. Deeply hurt. She was right. "How often did these . . .disciplines occur? Once every few months, every few weeks?"_

_"When John was home, usually once a week. Never more than twice."_

_A typical pattern of the abuser. Father no doubt set to being a terrific dad in between, plying his son with toys and outings, hugs and smiles. Kendall wondered if the boy had fallen for any of it. Abused children are conned into believing it'll never happen again. Conned over and over again. Soon, hope takes the place of belief. Then resignation supplants hope. The abuse is what always occurs and therefore is what __**should**__ occur. The child believes it is deserved -- believes the punishment (and his worthlessness) is his due to the depths of his soul. Even as he hates and dreads it, he embraces it._

_Kendall speculated that John and Blythe Houses' son had at once nodded to the tenant that he was worth nothing while battling to erect something inside himself that was. An alternative persona to hang on to so he could one day be, if not part of a human society he didn't actually belong to, at least stand at the edge of it and be counted. Promiscuousness was often an alternative identity clung to and used to feel something. Or the ever shifting identity illicit drugs could bring or, as Kendall suspected in Gregorys' case, the pursuit of intellect._

_"When did this change in Gregory end? When did he return to behaving as his normal self?"_

_Blythe looked at her doctor with eyes just barely opening to the dirty, ugly truths of the past. Ashamed of themselves, her words admitted, "After that, I don't think he ever did." _

XXX

Wilson slept at home but returned early the next morning to check on House.

"What the hell is going on?" He examined the chart and the latest readings of heart-rate, O2's, temperature. All of it, except the O2 levels, had risen overnight.

"He's sounding a little congested."

Wilson tilted his head sideways just a bit. "Well, not surprising considering he's lying in a hospital bed _again_. His lungs must be sick of it." He said to the petite nurse in pink bustling around the room. She changed Houses' IV bag. Wilson ordered up antibiotics. "Just in case he has a minor infection. That would explain the temperature."

She nodded and left to see to his order. After she left Wilson leaned over House. "Hey." He said, taking his lovers' left hand with his right. That House had not yet woken up was cause for worry. "I'm sick of keeping your dad occupied, you gotta rescue me, here."

House didn't stir. Wilson could feel the heat off his body and wished it was there because they were both under thick covers kissing and groping each other, instead of House once again looking pale and sick and unconscious on a hospital issue pillow.

There was no John House in the room. Wilson kissed Houses' lips, lingering just a bit. That close he could hear the chest rattle the nurse had described. He took his stethoscope from where it rested around his neck and listened to various spots on Houses' chest, then moved the scope to the side of his rib-cage. The congestion wasn't just bronchial.

Wilson called for oxygen. Just as the nurse returned with the equipment, Cuddy entered.

Wilson looked at her with a pinched, worried face. "He's got pneumonia."

Cuddy bit her lip and sighed. "I guess that's no surprise. Lately House has spent more time in a hospital bed than he has watching his Soaps." She shook her head at her diagnosticians' wan, silent face. "Has his father been by?"

"Not yet." Wilson glanced at his watch. "It's still early." He cleared his throat. "I had them do another CT on House."

Cuddy frowned and shook her head, a trifle puzzled. "I thought PP-Generals' ER had one done when he was brought in?"

"I wanted to make sure they didn't miss anything."

"You're worried about his injury -- his old injury I mean, not his newest one."

"I wanted to make sure there were no complications from . . ."

From experience Cuddy knew Wilson was holding something back. "From what?"

Wilson looked at his shoes. "Houses' father, hit him . . .a couple of weeks ago. On the side of his head." He coughed. "His right side."

Cuddy stared, opened mouthed. "And you thought this information wasn't, I don't know -- _relevant_? He's had a _skull_ fracture."

Wilson bit back his ready excuse because he knew she was right. He should have said something immediately. "House didn't want anyone to know about it. He was embarrassed." Wilson rubbed his head. "And I let my feelings for him cloud my judgement. I should have reported it, to Foreman or Chase at least."

"Well, _duh!" _But Cuddy, not one to indulge her temper for long, gathered herself almost immediately. She couldn't damn the man for loving House. "I'm assuming you found nothing on the CT?"

"Nothing."

Houses' monitor registered a slight change by a soft beeping that slowly but steadily grew louder and faster. Wilson quickly checked it. "His temperature's up another degree."

"Oh, God. What is it at now?"

"A hundred, four." Wilson looked down at his unconscious friend. "He's had loads of fluids and two rounds of antibiotics. What the hell is going on?"

Cuddy marched to the door. "Whatever it is, I'm going to get his team working on it right now."

XXX

Chase, who had been Houses' attending in Intensive, lead the differential, his marker poised near the white-board.

The board that, Wilson wished, House ought to be standing in front of at that moment.

Chase announced to them as though putting away the obvious they already knew, "House has had plenty of broad spectrum antibiotics. It's pneumonia but not bacterial or the drugs would have already knocked it out. So . . ." he looked at the team of three, Hadley, Taub and Kutner, plus two, Cameron and Foreman. He hoped the newest members of Houses' work-space were as good as he hoped they were. " . . .speculations as to viral or . . .?"

Hadley got right to the point. "We don't know his medical history. Not all of it. House is pretty closed mouthed."

Wilson, leaning by the conference room door, raised an arm to get their attention. "Here." He said to Hadley and the group. "What do you want to know?"

"Is he on anything beside Vicodin? Prescription or non?" Taub asked.

Wilson crossed his arms. He would have to be totally forthcoming. Worry over Houses' private life needed to be thrust aside if they were to help him. "Other than Tylenol and the occasional Mary-Jane, no."

"Does he have a history of respiratory illnesses?" Kutner asked.

Wilson shook his head. "Allergies. Pollen, grass, dust . . ."

Cameron nodded to herself and recalling, while working for House for several years, seeing House stuffed up for many weeks during spring and summer.

The conference room door opened and Cuddy lead in John House. She motioned to a chair for him by the small corner desk and he sat, clearly intending to stay as they discussed his sons' case. Cuddy said very quietly to Wilson as she passed him again to leave the room, "Sorry. He insisted."

Wilson raised his eyes heavenward. Houses' father arriving just in time to hear all sorts of sordid details of his sons' life. A perfect beginning to a perfectly lousy day.

"What about edema?" Taub suggested. "His Vicodin use is - what? - a decade old. Over-dosage can cause respiratory depression by acting directly on the respiratory center in the brain stem."

Kutner shook his head. "He's been off Vicodin since he was at Generals' ER. If there was edema, it would be reducing by now."

Cameron looked almost embarrassed at her suggestion. "What about alcoholism? Alcoholics have a four-fold greater risk of pneumonia related illnesses."

"We already know he has pneumonia." Wilson said a little testily. Cameron was trying to help, but still it was hard to hear her suggest it in reference to House. Even if it was true. "We're looking for its' _cause_."

"I know." She answered, not deterred. "This may not be just a viral infection either. Not if it's . . ." Cameron looked askance at Wilson, refusing to let his relationship with House obscure or cloud her medical judgement. "Not if it's alcohol-mediated lung injury. It's comparable to liver scarring -- pulmonary cirrhosis. The mortality rate from it is high. A bacterial or viral infection could lead to severe pneumonia. House could drown in his own fluids."

"We've already done cultures for all the common bacterial and viral infections that most often result in pneumonia." Chase said.

Cameron pushed her point. "It might not be common."

The group all waited for Wilson to dispute her or anyone else to make a different suggestion. When none did, Chase finally asked the question. "Doctor Wilson. Does Doctor House drink a lot?"

Wilson looked around the room, his glance coming to rest a little longer on John House, who waited, frozen in place, for the answer.

Foreman, impatient with Chases' genteel phrasing, bluntly put it to Wilson a second time, "Is House an alcoholic, and if so how many years and how bad?"

Wilson swallowed. "Yes." He put his hands on his hips, hating that he was having to reveal things about House they had no right to know. Things that might color their already skewed perception of him. Things that his father might use against House in the future for what-ever fucked up reason people in the House family had for hurting one another.

Wilson warmed over with anger that he was being forced to tell them all something so private and personal about House, because now House wouldn't only be the misanthropic, abrasive, drug addicted jerk, he would be the misanthropic, abrasive, drug addicted, _alcoholic_ jerk. Like House needed any more reasons for people to dislike him.

Wilson soothed his smarting conscience by telling himself that they were a bunch of short-sighted idiots who wouldn't know a genuine, honest human being if he walked up and poked them with a cane. "Before the infarction, House drank. After, . . ." He sighed, "He started drinking a lot." Wilson then added softly, hating the necessity for his brutal, but crucial, honesty, "He drinks every day."

"How many drinks?" Cameron asked. If she could choose to not know she would prefer it. Her respect for House had never wavered. Her feelings for him still fluctuated. She would love to know that he was not also an alcoholic in addition to an addict of prescription narcotics. She never wanted to feel sorry for House. He didn't deserve it.

Wilson rubbed his face. "Two or three. Sometimes more."

Chase nodded and respectfully replaced the top on the marker, putting it down. He said to Houses' new team, "Do a bronchial flush for ragged pulmonary epithelials and free granulomas. And do an MRI. Check for scarring." Chase looked over to Foreman and Wilson in case they had an argument against or something to add to his decided treatments.

Taub said, "He's already pneumonic. More fluid can only make it worse."

"Got a better idea, now's the time." Foreman said.

By his silence, it was clear Taub didn't and when none of the team moved right away, Foreman jerked his head toward the door. "Go team." He ordered, and they quickly filed out.

Chase and Foreman, after being introduced to John House by Wilson, followed the team out. After they left, Wilson stood in the center of the room, not certain what it is he could do. Cuddy didn't want him too involved in Houses' treatment. She insisted he could not be objective. She was probably right.

John House looked over at Wilson and Wilson stared back. There was nothing to say really. But, in the harsh light of the flourescent overheads and the hard reality of his sons' worsening health, the angry father suddenly displayed the appearance of a man tired of the struggle. A struggle common to most fathers and sons. John House was a man seeming to want an end to all battles between him and his only son and to finally bring some level of peace.

Wilson didn't allow himself too much sympathy all at once. Appearances could be deceiving. That's how it was in war.

Snapping the sharp quiet of the room in half, John House asked in an old man's weary voice, "Is my son dying?"

XXX

Part VI ASAP!

XXX


	6. Chapter 6

Wounded Ways

Part VI

Pairing: House/Wilson established relationship.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Abuse. Sexual situations. Medical situations. SLASH.

Summary: House family crises, extreme Hurt/comfort, Peripheral character death.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

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_"We had clusters of lilac bushes in the new house. All the houses were the same with a long back yard and a small one car garage at the alley way."_

_Blythe saw fit, Kendall recognized, to add the pretty details of her families life and home so the doctor would not judge them too harshly. They were normal, after all, her painted descriptions insisted. Kendall could see it burning in her pupils. She was a Good mother, John was a Good father, Gregory a Good child, their life Good, their family Good. If she had been less of a proper lady, she would have stamped her foot. _

_Everything had been as it should have in the shielded eyes of a mother full of shame and regret, a woman who had seen her son drive a two thousand pound vehicle into a brick wall. That he was still alive was blind luck._

_A fifteen year old dealing with torn up feelings, up heaving all over the place without a flicker above the surface to hint that they existed at all. Confusion, love, hate, resentment, fear . . .Banished to a dark, cold yard to sleep apart from the family core. Sent out and away and lesson learned. _

_Greg had been thoroughly instructed as to his role in his fathers' world and in the world itself. Passed from father to son (in a what Kendall suspected was a long line off fathers and sons), was a signal raised under which he was to remain. John had given it to him -- a lonely place where only Gregory would stand in an even colder world. Kendall suspected Gregory had cupped in fisted hands that distant and tiny kingdom over which he'd been crowned, crushing it to his very center. Greg, intelligent child that he was, had not merely accepted his role but asked a question: If who that claim to love me has acted in opposition, what would any in the world possibly wish to offer?_

_When the time was right, Gregory had withdrawn from it all. A solution so simple, he must have smiled at his own cleverness._

_Kendall was convinced the roots of Blythes' sons' attempted suicide was his youthful, misdirected, confused way of finding out if he were right. If he had worth, he would be saved and things would change. If he did not, he might still be saved, even accidently, and nothing would change. The world was the way it was and he would not attempt to alter it. He had bigger fish to fry._

_"What did Greg do once he was home from the hospital?"_

_"He went back to school, after a week. He was happier, I think. His grades improved. School was never hard for him, I mean the subjects, the learning -- everything came easy to him."_

_"Does he ever talk about it. It's just over a year ago this happened, isn't it? Did he receive any counseling?"_

_"We sent him to someone a few times, a psychologist. She stated he was, well, rude but very together, very intelligent. Calm. She was convinced he was fine."_

_Kendall mused that it was probably more the other way around. More like Gregory convinced the psychologist that he was fine. _

_As Blythe spoke of Gregory being Well, Balanced and Fine, Doctor Kendall imagined the six year old Greg, or the seven or eight or nine year old, staring through the branches of a bush under which he had made his bed, seeing the warm lighted windows of his fathers house with the central heating. Perhaps, as a defenseless six year old, he had stared for hours, wishing his mother would come take him back inside and give him cocoa and peanut butter crackers. _

_Kendall then imagine another Greg, a different, emotionally unmoved Greg, had curled up beneath the bushes, uncaring as to anything happening inside the house of his parents who seemed completely at ease with leaving him out there as punishment for mistakes everybody made. For mistakes his father had probably made when he was a kid. Kendall wondered at what age Gregory had started gathering his own blanket to take to the backyard, or the day arrived at where he ran the bath himself while his father watched._

_Somewhere along the line, when the psychological blows had ceased or when he just didn't notice them anymore, Gregory House had begun arranging his own blows. He'd put his face forward and stared into an unfathomable, disapproving world and allowed the harm to bounce off or slice right through him. But he had long ceased stepping out of the way._

_Kendall turned his mind to Blythe seated before him, her fidgety hands repeatedly folding and unfolding a white napkin from her purse, her Good wife and mother words striking, each time, striking the space between them like flaming arrows. It was this way and that. Kendall imagined Blythe beneath the stern disciplinary regiment of her military husband. He tall and strong and Knowing What To Do, and herself, subservient, uncomplaining and writing the false words over her heart that John Houses' style of instilling godly fear and respect into their poor son wasn't really tearing his heart to shreds._

_What had ultimately been achieved was not a good soldier but a bewildered child who, Kendal suspected, had grown into a willful, disagreeable, rebellious teenager who loathed everything his father stood for._

_Kendall was very curious. "How was Greg toward his father after the accident?" _

_"Withdrawn. Cool. He wouldn't speak to his father for weeks. He hardly spoke to me. But then, Greg was never clingy."_

_Kind of hard to be clingy from the yard, Kendall mused._

_"Gregory was always so independent." She added._

_"So, other than the silence, you noticed no significant change in him?" Kendall thought it unlikely she had not, unless the woman was stone cold blind._

_"Oh," She assured him, "there was change." Blythe said: "He stopped bringing friends home, spent more time reading and being away from the house. . . ." _

_Kendall heard: Extrovert forced into introversion. _

_Blythe said: "When he was home, he spent more time in his room, studying." _

_Kendall heard: Isolated. Depressed. Lonely._

_"I think he was starting to discover the opposite sex. Teenagers __**do**__, you know." Blythe said it like all teenage boys conspired against their parents to seek out pretty girls. She was not far from the truth._

_And Kendall __**did**__ know. He had three daughters. _

_"Greg got into trouble more and more. Not with his father, but for other offenses."_

_Interesting phrasing, Kendall thought. Not mischief or mistakes but offenses. John House had been running a platoon under his own roof._

_Blythe said: "Greg was terribly restless."_

_Kendall heard: Anxious and not sleeping._

_Harsh, demanding father. Dominated wife. Intelligent, inquisitive but profoundly unhappy child._

_Kendall suspected a lighted fuse had been set in motion between father and son during Gregorys' formative years, that had burn hot for a long time. And now a potentially explosive relationship had come, set face to face, bringing Gregory House to the brink of death by suicide._

_And Gregs' guilt-laden mother here, to him._

XXX

"No. "Wilson assured him, "Greg is not dying." Wilson hoped it were true. "He's sick. Pneumonia. His team is doing everything they can to get him better."

John House rubbed his hands together, picking at a small square of plastic bandage on his left palm.

Wilson gestured toward the injury. "Did you get that looked at?"

John House dismissed it. "It's nothing. So, the accident caused his pneumonia?"

So he would not have to into a lengthy second differential with House senior he nodded. "Basically. When a patient is all but immobile, congestion can build up in his lung. Other physical factors can increase the risk."

John House nodded, to himself, almost complacently, as though perhaps some sneaking suspicion had been confirmed. "The police say it was a single car accident. That he was driving alone. And drunk."

As heartbreaking as it was to admit it, Wilson nodded and it worried his a lot. As irresponsible as House could be, getting in behind the wheel and careening down the road high as a kite wasn't like him at all. Thank god he had just bent a light standard in half and not a human being, escaping serious criminal charges.

There would be a New Rule by James Wilson once House woke up and was back in their apartment. Something strongly motivating to a man like House such as: No sex until you cut the drinking down to one drink of only beer per night. When it came to getting scotch on the rocks, or getting his rocks off, House would take the second choice. Wilson suddenly felt warm with the memory of House under him, stringing together incomprehensible noises of appreciation into his ear as he writhed and made it clear that he craved and loved and wanted Wilson more than his job, his drink, his Vicodin or his life. Wilson had found Houses' Achilles heel and it was himself. _And all I had to do to figure it out was get him naked and screw the be jesus out of him._

Wilson hated being controlling (after fifteen years of friendship he had to admit that Houses' accusation of his best friend being a manipulative little bastard was accurate), but House needed some controlling. Without it bad things tended to happen, things usually his own fault and inevitably unraveling out of control to his own detriment.

Wilson explained to John House who stood off to one side, almost hiding in the corner of the room, though his eyes never leaving his son, never off Gregory's still form even for a moment. "He's having trouble breathing, so we're . ." _While House has two lungs already drowning in water_. ". .doing a bronchial flush to examine the wastes -- the epithelials and any sloughed off materials that wash out. We want to make sure it isn't cancer or some chronic condition that's only now manifesting itself."

At John Houses' suddenly crinkled forehead, Wilson soothed, " Because of his age, that last one's probably unlikely." But he himself could see where this was likely going. House picked up bugs more often than most, but he also usually rallied quite quickly after an illness or injury. It wasn't taking that route this time around.

John House, suddenly looking very much like a tired old man, walked slowly to the door, looking back at his son as he paused to open it. "I . . .need some coffee."

Chase entered, stepping back with a nod of greeting to allow Houses' father to exit and then walked over to Wilson, handing him the lab results. "Bronchial flush was loaded with epithelials and ragged grannulomas. It means this is a virulent infection and it's attacking his bronchial passages. The lungs are next." Chase accepted the file back and said to Wilson while efficiently looking over Houses' vitals monitor. Wilson imagined the young physician was memorizing the readings. "We have to start him on stronger antibiotics."

"How strong?"

"As much as he can handle -- the whole deck."

With bloodshot eyes Wilson glanced first at Chase, at the ceiling, then comint to rest on Houses' prostrate form. "He's been on a range of antibiotics for three days. I know that's not long but there should have been some improvement. House is getting worse."

-

-

-

Chase pulled the top off the black marker and Cameron felt for the second time how weird it was to be in Houses' conference room without House leading the differential. It felt wrong without him. Everything felt wrong.

"We need something stronger.' Chase opened. "If we knew which viral infection this is, it would be easy, . . well, easier. You've all looked at his chart, so you know what the wash found. Problem is there won't be any cultures ready from _that_ for another day at least." With mutual consent, Chase had quickly narrowed down the list of possibilities, dismissing altogether those things the disease was virtually impossible to be, though they went on the board anyway with question marks.

Foreman sat the closest to the board but seemed content to let Chase run the differential. Chase had worked for House longer than himself and as far as he could see was making some astute observations. Foreman felt no need to take his place in the spot-light. Funny thing about spot-lights, they get burning hot and Chase had an elite audience. Taub and Hadley sat nearest the white board. Kutner, Cameron and Wilson took the chairs on the other side of the table. Foreman sat in Houses' swivel chair that he had rolled over from his office. Including Chase, that made seven brains. Not a bad cast of players for a differential.

Taub was reluctant to drop his Vicodin connection. "Even if House has been off Vicodin since the crash, that doesn't mean it hasn't caused some secondary condition, some damage. I'm not talking about liver or kidneys or urethra, I mean immunities. Long term use of narcotic can depress the immune response and make whatever this is stronger."

In a ghostly echo of Houses words Chase said, "_Again_, all that tells us is we need to use a stronger version of a specific drug we haven't decided on yet, and we haven't decided 'cause we don't know what the infection is."

"But not all infections get this bad with suppressed immune response. We don't really know how long House has been infected. We assumed this developed from something here at the hospital because he got worse a few days after the crash which was a week ago. What if he was sick before the crash?"

Kutner said, "That takes us back two weeks or twelve, depending on what the infection is. We can't possibly narrow down everything House may have touched or breathed in or who he interacted with during that time."

"And that's not helpful at this point. We might have a day of wiggle room." Hadley said.

Chase turned back to the board. "Okay, what infections, bacterial, viral, microbial, or what funguses infect, and like most go unnoticed at first, then leap to fever, pulmonary fluid build-up resulting in pneumonia and unconsciousness?" He turned to them. "-- Don't answer that. That's just going to take us in tighter circles. Okay. What if we put everything we know together and sift out the impossible stuff?"

"It's not AIDS or Hepatitis. No STD's present." Cameron said and glowered at the many pairs of eyes looking back with piqued curiosity over her seeming intimate knowledge about the current state of Houses' nether regions. "He had a physical last month. We all did, remember? Cuddy slipped it into his file for us. House is clean."

"He's had a couple of heart attacks so it isn't as healthy as it used to be, but the echo was clean. It's not congestive heart failure." Hadley said.

Foreman added, somewhat pompously. "Definitely out since CHF takes years to develop to this stage."

"Chase asked for _impossible_." Hadley answered testily.

Chase took the opportunity to speak again. "Okay, now we filter out the ridiculous stuff." He turned and waited.

"It's not Spotted Fever, measles, or 'Pox, and it's not a bad cold. Not Lime Disease because no target rash." Cameron said. "It can't be MS. House is way too old for Adult Onset and neither of his parents families have a history." She looked at them all again. "_Hello_. In Houses _file." _

"What about swabbing the hospital?" Kutner suggested.

"Already thought of that." Foreman said. "It would take days and even if we did find a likely culprit there's no time for a culture. We'd still be shooting blind."

Chase sighed. "Now it's time to put everything we DO know together and see if we can get a picture of what this thing is." He turned to the group.

Hadley dived in. "We know House was in a car crash a week ago."

"And a bus crash a few months ago." Kutner added.

"Six months ago." Chase corrected him. "Possibly relevant so it goes on the board. But we want to include everything we know about House, too, and more recently."

"He had a cracked skull. We assumed there was no post infection, but there could have been." Hadley said.

"Doing what? " Taub asked. "Lying in wait until a better split skull and a better brain environment in which to proliferate came along?"

Hadley countered, ignoring Taubs' sarcasm. "House was on antibiotics for a just-in-case scenario. Just because no infections reared their heads, doesn't mean they weren't there. Maybe the antibiotics were stopped early by House himself?"

Chase asked, "Did anyone, excuse this freshman-stupid question, um, _monitor_ House while he was running around the hospital chasing ghosts and doing exactly as he physically shouldn't have been doing?" Chase didn't suspect a single nod. "Thought so, but since infection's already on the board . . ."

"Wait," Hadley said. "House hides things. Especially about himself, anything personal, anything that would . . .display a vulnerability."

Wilson suddenly made a sound somewhere between a groan and a gasp. "House was hit!" He saw he needed to clarify. "His father hit House across the side of his head. The side where he had his fracture."

Chase thought about it. "Well, that's really ,. . . _shitty_ of dear old dad," Chase sounded like he really meant it. "But the CT we did of his head showed no new abnormalities. Nothing's changed in there except that his split skull is slowly healing." But he left it on the board anyway and turned back. Come on, we're batting zero here. Anything at all, even if it's non-medical."

Kutner said uncertainly. "Well, his dad showed up about two weeks ago. A few days before the car crash I think."

Chase decided it was worth a place on the list. "Probably just a coincidence but interesting enough to go on the board. So, of the above mentioned possibilities, which would get out of control in about two weeks due to suppressed immune response and long term alcohol use?"

No one spoke. Foreman shook his head. "His lungs are filling up now. Even on an oxygen tank, House could suffocate by morning." He said. "Until one of us gets a little smarter in the next twelve hours, all we can do for now is treat the symptoms."

"Then we suction." Kutner said. "We take shifts and get him through the night."

"It's risky. We could poke a hole in him, start a hemorrhage --" Taub protested.

Cameron protested his protest. "We're not first year nursing students, I sure everyone here knows how to safely vacuum out pulmonary congestion."

Recruiting two Intensive nurses to make up any short-fall, they wrote up a list of two hour shifts each.

Chase, taking the first shift, watched everyone file out then grimly looked at the board. "My second differential ever. A big, fat bust."

XXX

Wilson took his shift, the third of the night, and handed the tube off to nurse Chamney, who took his seat, snaked a new sterile tiny vacuum down Houses' intubation tube and began the job all over again. Wilson could hear the sickening sounds of mucus being coaxed out of Houses' clogged bronchial passageways.

He stood, stretched and feeling cold, slipped on his doctor coat. His suite jacket was back in his office, but he didn't want to abandon his post just yet. Glancing out the door window, he spotted John House peering briefly in. When he saw Wilson he moved away from the window.

Wilson joined him in the hallway.

John asked without a pause for thought, "Is Greg dying? Is my son going to leave me?"

Wilson thought it, not inappropriate, but a somewhat out-of-character question coming from a man he had always assumed was as emotionally repressed as his son. "We're taking care of him. We're making sure he keeps breathing until we can figure out what this is."

John House nodded, staring at Wilson until Wilson began to feel uncomfortable under his piercing grey eyes. He was scrutinizing him, Wilson realised, deciding something. "This is my fault."

Before Wilson could utter soothing words of protest, suddenly John whispered, "I tortured my son."

Wilson felt his insides go cold and his windpipe pinch off any possible response. Every word, could he even have articulated one, was suddenly lodged in his throat like a stone. Then, "E-excuse me?"

John House stared back with that disconcerting, unblinking gaze. "For years, I humiliated and tortured my own son. My only child." John repeated. He looked away then, to the door of Gregorys' room. "Greg tried to kill himself when he was sixteen and I was responsible. It was because of me. This, what's happening to him, is _my_ fault."

John Houses' words seeped from his mouth like a long trapped ghost, now flying around and between them, circling the small space of occupied life in which everything about Gregory House that Wilson thought he understood had suddenly become incomprehensible. Like someone had taken Greg and molded him into stranger right before his eyes.

It occurred to Wilson that attempted suicide was exactly what John House believed now. He believed that one week ago, House had climbed in his car drunk and wrapped the front end around a light standard _on purpose._

All Wilson could think to do was stand very still and keep his hands in his pockets. If he moved an inch, he felt certain that he would not be able to control himself. He knew for sure that he would knock John Houses' lights out. His voice shook with rage. "Why are you telling me this?"

John just stared back at him, like a man made of iron, unmoving. Not really even breathing. He didn't have an answer.

XXX

Part VII ASAP!


	7. Chapter 7

Wounded Ways

Part VII

Pairing: House/Wilson established relationship.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Abuse. Sexual situations. Medical situations. SLASH.

Summary: House family crises, extreme Hurt/comfort, Peripheral character death.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

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"Why are you telling me this?" Wilson asked again.

John House, standing outside his sons' recovery room, listening to his sons ragged breathing and the tiny slurp and whirr of the suction tube steadily clearing his lungs of mucus, asked himself and anyone within hearing that very question. He needed an answer too.

The images of his child in ice-baths or his banishment to a dark scary, night had to become real somehow - John believed his atrocities had to be exposed or he felt certain they, and in consequence, he would die with his son and surely more deservedly. Because, since his wifes death, almost nothing of the past felt . . ._true_. His history existed as a terrible dream of a lie someone else had experienced but that _he_ remembered.

John, dumbfounded at himself, stared back at Wilson. Whether over the red spots of rage on Wilsons' cheeks or his own spontaneous confession of child abuse, even John House wasn't certain. A little of both he thought.

"I don't know." He stared at Wilson as a man suddenly confronting his own conscience unrolled and spread out for anyone to examine in morbid detail, only to discover that its language was indecipherable.

"Wh-what kind of a father would do that?" John House asked of himself and Wilson. "What kind of man would torture a child? His own son? How, . . ._how_ could I do that? _Why??" _

Wilson was afraid he might injure John House if John answered his next question, but he _had_ to know. "What did you do to him?" _To my best friend? My second sight and conscience? My lover?_

John House suddenly lost his sense of balance and had to sit down, slumping bonelessly in a plastic chair, one of molded many lined up against the wall. A man with the weight of a family on his shoulders, with the weight of years of unjust things perpetrated which could never be undone. "I, . . .I sent him to the yard. To sleep." John gestured as though he held the wooly thing in his hands and was offering it to Wilson. "I gave him my army blanket and told him to go. Dark, cold, rain, heat. That, that . . never _mattered." _He spoke the word as though _he_ could hardly believe it.

His next confession made him shake his head at the bully he had once been, and maybe still was. "I plunged Gregory into --" He started to cry those silent, flowing large man tears men sometimes did, his face turning red, grey and white. All the colors of shame. ". . . into ice-baths. I held him there -- held him _down_ until he, . . until . ." he could not possibly finish. The words were too powerful, too horrible to remember. Impossible to speak and remain a semblance of a man.

John House fell silent. He stared at Wilson with eyes half crazy with grief over what he had done. Looked with disgust and contempt at his younger self, the cruel, hard man who banished his son to the backyard wilderness or the indoor river of ice, who now seemed to him a total stranger. "I didn't_ care_ if it was cold or if he cried or if he turned blue. Or if he said nothing."

John House covered his face in his thick, rough hands and leaned over until he was almost double.

Wilson made no move to comfort. That was far too much to ask. Turned to stone, even a twitch of sympathy was beyond him.

John Houses' words had tumbled hard and slow from his mouth, though piercing Wilsons heart like rifle shots. Adrenaline poured into his system, that contrary mix of violent heat and icy chill, instantly coalescing into a barely contained boiling fury.

John House straightened at the sudden silence of the man standing over him. He could see the righteous rage in his eyes and spoke quickly in hopes to alleviate Wilsons' anger and his own crushing guilt. "What I did was unforgivable. I don't know how to make it up. How do you take that kind of thing back?"

Any sudden burst of angry words and he could not trust himself to refrain from smashing John Houses' face in.

The Senior House seemed to sense it. The furious fire in Wilsons wide, dark eyes was proof enough.

Remembering his average American upbringing, with the everyday normal sibling rivalries, the arguments between mom and dad, being well fed, Wilson trembled with rage at the betrayal of Gregorys' own childhood. To Wilson, it seemed like a life-rape had been perpetrated on the man he loved, even though they had been strangers during its unfolding.

On rainy days, Wilson recalled being brought in and his mother rubbing him with a warm towel. Soaking in a warm bath. Playing with his brothers in a yard, kicking soccer balls and riding their bikes -- never once giving any of it a second thought as being anything but completely deserved.

Not giving it even a first thought. Wilson asked in a strained, hateful whisper, "You, held him _down_ in ice...?" Wilson couldn't finish the words either. They took his breath away. They held too much power to make him want John House dead.

"I made my son feel like he wasn't enough. I hurt him, over and over. Punished my son for not being --" He stopped.

"What?" Wilson demanded. "Finish what you were going to say." He wanted to know it all now. Every detail no matter how bad. House was his friend and lover and confidant and the very best part of his life and seemed to have been so forever. Because of that Wilson didn't _want_ to know these horrors, he needed to.

"-- For not being more like me."

Wilson licked his lips, gathering as few words as was necessary to end the conversation without violence. "I don't know why you suddenly felt the need to confess your _crimes_. But if you're looking for absolution, you won't get it from me."

Wilson didn't break John Houses jaw, but he did walk away before the temptation to do so grew too overpowering. He hated that the man had chosen him as his Padre. It was not because Wilson didn't want to know such terrible truths about Houses' childhood -- he was swift to accept the importance of knowing -- but because he was afraid that the knowledge would taint the way he looked at House. That he would now begin to see Gregory, not as a doctor, mentor, friend and lover, but a victim. Someone to look upon with pity.

Goddamn John House for his forty year old conscience waking up to his appalling mistakes as a father. Such mistakes as he had described, though, went a long way in explaining some of the more inexplicable quirks that underlined much of Houses' behavior. John Houses' repulsive descriptions of abuse had altered Wilsons' vision of House, shifting it left and sideways, changing its position in the natural order of Wilsons' life; planting Greg now on a different square of earth and behooving Wilson to change his perspective as well.

What few absolutes Wilson thought he may have understood about House had been confounded. New insights settled into place. Old assumptions were set aside or simply discarded. To understanding House anew, Wilson was confronted. In his mind, Gregory had been unfairly morphed into a misshapen human being. There were new angles and edges where John Houses' confession had shaved or gouged the old ones away.

As deeply as he loved him, Wilson was staggered that House was in fact a different man than the one Wilson thought he knew only five little minutes before. There were things about Gregory House he would need to learn all over again.

XXX

Wilson went home and got drunk. It was a pointless exercise other than to ease the pain he felt. It would do Greg no good for him to be incapacitated or hung-over if anything went wrong. Went _worse-ly_ wrong. But he called the hospital every hour to check on Houses' condition, speaking to, in turn Chase, Cuddy and Foreman, each who assured him that, for the time being, House was "steady".

That meant no improvement. Neither did it mean he was dying. Wilson took a taxi back to Plainsboro to sit by Houses' bed and listen to the rattle of his breath. The suctioning had got him through the night and they had elevated his head-rest in the hopes to alleviate any further build-up of congestion. It was a medical gesture. Almost useless.

John House was nowhere to be seen and Wilson was glad for that. Wilson could not erase the images from his mind of House under a bush in the dark or gasping in glacial water, his mind a whirl of agonizing whys, trying to make sense of his fathers' actions.

Of course Greg would have tried to figure it out. He always tried to figure _everything_ out.

Wilson recalled hitting the park with House on many an occasion, eating lunch there and Greg talking, always almost every minute, talking. He would point out this or that person, someone walking a dog or talking on a cellular phone and come up with plausible scenarios as to what was being said, felt or thought by each.

Wilson had not understood these outings, other than taking advantage of a sunny day or crisp clear sky, but he had started going more often (On the days House wanted to be by himself on the picnic table, he would not drop by Oncology and gather up Wilson. On the days he wanted company, House'd burst through Wilsons' door and bark at him to get his coat on and buy him lunch), and Wilson soon learned that he was getting a peek into the workings of the mind of his long time friend. The "rat maze" as he had named it.

That rat maze was a buried city of intricate structures all with connecting paths to every other. Looking on, judging by behavior, a maze nearly impossible to navigate. So many blind alleys and detours. But letting House lead him on a journey through one little part of it lent Wilson a small mental tidbit of what lay beyond.

"Remember that woman who walked by earlier with the baby carriage?" House asked one day.

Wilson nodded, actually remembering several who had. Hard to remember one generic mom among the hundreds that passed through the park weekly.

House announced, "She's getting a divorce from her husband."

Wilson was certain it was a guess. "Three out of five marriages fail within the first year. You have a sixty percent chance of being right."

"Sixty percent isn't much better than fifty-fifty, but luck is not why I'm right." House contended.

"Okay, _tell_ me why."

"She was wearing a wedding ring with a rock on it the size of Gibralter, so a married mom. And she's a new mom, obviously. Less obvious was, it's her first baby."

"Why is it obvious he's her first?"

"She was built like a pencil but her breasts were big. Statistically, a woman that thin ought to have A breasts. Hers were C or better. So either she's had enlargements and how many women do that before having a baby? Or they're real but still perky. Youth plus C-perky plus infant equals brand new mom."

House continued despite Wilsons' eye-roll. "And it was a tiny baby carriage, one of those expensive fifteen hundred dollar jobs, and it had the tiny snap-in baby holder, meant for newborns. She's divorcing already because she wasn't staring with gooey, adoring eyes and smiling at that perfect newborn in _her_ perfect carriage, she had a scowl on her face that could castrate a man at fifty yards. So whoever she was talking with on the phone - I'm thinking her husband - they were arguing."

Wilson recalled the frilly pink interior of one carriage, and the thin woman in question finally came back to his mind. House was observant to a creepy degree. But, "Come on. You can't possibly know that. It could have been her mother on the phone, or, worse, her mother-in-law."

House twirled his cane playfully. Wilson followed its circular dance, not letting on how much he love to watch House do that. "Maybe," House countered, "but I doubt it. I was watching her for a while. She'd been on the phone for almost twenty minutes by the time she walked by us and still had that miserable face. If she was speaking to her mother, they don't get along because grandma doesn't relish _being_ a grandma - and if that horror were true - why talk to her for twenty minutes when she is obviously getting no-where in the argument? Why indulge her precious babies' absent, uninterested grandma? Why not just hang up on her? Same deal if it was her mother-in-law, only she would have hung up after _three_ minutes, not twenty."

Wilson considered the logic. It seemed to hold some water. "Okay. So why do you think it was the husband?"

"Because new mom checked her wallet while she was standing by the creek bridge, probably to see to see how much money she had in her account. Divorce lawyers are expensive." House threw him a knowing look.

Wilson sighed. "Yes, _now_ - in fact anytime - is the right time for mocking my failed marriages, and that almost half my income goes to my ex-wives. And you still haven't convinced me. She might be going shopping this morning and that's why she checked her money."

"With that frowny face? And everyone says you _don't_ have a sense of humor. It's the husband she's arguing with and a break up is definitely in the realm of possibility. It's just after One PM so the husband, whatever he does, is probably at work. Husband and wives call each other on their lunch break to discuss one of three things: to spew out endless endearments of love and devotion, when love is new, to discuss what to do about dinner or the color she's picked for the kitchen renovations, when love is getting stale -- and that angry scowl isn't indicative of either of those -- or to continue an argument that began at breakfast, when love is going, going or gone."

House, perched on the bench of the picnic table, looked up at Wilson, having to tilt his head way back to meet Wilsons' brown eyes looking down. "Trust me, it's the husband and he's dialing a divorce lawyer between whiskeys."

The way Houses' mind worked almost frightened him, but his own feelings for House were neither new nor stale. Wilson felt proud that he loved House that intensely. It had hung on strong and grown stronger with every year. He just wished the hell he'd figured it out earlier on or knew why he felt it at all. House was often right, but not _always_. Not all things could be broken down, labeled and stacked neatly in rows like House believed.

Wilson closed the gap and kissed House quickly on the lips. "You're so cynical." Then he kissed him again. "Good thing I love you."

XXX

_"I love my son." Blythe asserted._

_She kept repeating it, interjecting it now and again, as though she wasn't convinced Kendall believed her. If he didn't (Kendall could almost see her minds' reasoning), then it might not be true at all, and that was an idea he knew Blythe House could not allow within herself._

_Fact was he did believe her. He also believed she loved her husband. But loving her son or husband did not exclude her from mistakes or the probability of giving hurt to a loved one or receiving it from them. Love (just as anger, jealousy and hate), was hosted in human beings and human beings erred. Therefor love erred. Divorce rates were rising. Due to lust, falling in love, economics, war, peace, age, hurt or countless other reasons, people got together and then some of them broke up. The rate of marriages and divorces at any given time could be predicted and calculated with a fair degree of accuracy. Numbers don't lie. _

_"How is your son now?" Kendall had asked her before about Gregory and received carefully worded, articulate answers that told him almost nothing. She was protecting Gregory from the shame of what she thought of his attempted suicide and her own self condemnation at not recognizing how unhappy her son was or her failure to stop the attempt. Kendall needed to break through that barrier of denial. Most patients think they won't be able to contain their grief, that their crimes were too great to acknowledge or pay for. They think the size of their sorrow is super-human and might wreck whatever is left of themselves that was still untouched._

_Kendall imagined Gregory House might be feeling a similar denial. If so, he would have to give it up some time. Lying to oneself is exhausting to the mind and a rot to the soul. One of the ironies of life was that people were so __**good**__ at it. Not so good at honesty._

_"Do you think Gregory hates his father?" It was time for some hard truths._

_Blythe stared, almost in shock at his impertinent question. How rude! her eyes said, and how frightened they were of what the truth required. "Of course not. John loves Gregory. He is so proud of him."_

_Funny kind of proud, Kendall thought, though it was probably true. Human love again, erring all the way. Kendall also noted that Blythe didn't actually answer the question. He could not force her to._

_Blythe looked away, out the window again. She did that, whenever she was trying to find an answer that would not ask for sharp, irrevokable honesty. "I . . .tried t-to, . . ." She began to cry. The window and the normal, outside world where fifteen year old boys did not try to kill themselves, failed her. _

_The tears flowed silently and for a long time before she could gather enough breath to speak again. "I should have stopped him." She blurted, her hands on her face, leaving only two round, traumatized eyes looking at Kendall as though seeing for the first time her own reflection and the wrongfulness of her countenance. Her wet, horrified eyes said she was a mother who let her son be abused. A loving mom who watched her husband hurt her only child for years and years._

_"I should have screamed and beat at him. Hit him, divorced him, taken my son and left him! Made him stop!" Blythe rocked forwards in her chair with the weight of her guilt. "Why did I let him h-h-u-urt Gregory? I did, I let him torture my son. I let him . . ."_

_She raised her head and looked at Kendall, honesty finally wrung from her heart over many hours and days of side-stepping pretense. "How could I do that? How could I not put a stop to it?"_

_Kendall made soothing noises. Many people had sat in that chair and asked him those same questions. There were no easy answers. _

_Survival was often the reason people stayed in abusive homes. Familiarity. An abusive home (whether abused child or wife or husband) was stressful, physically dangerous, tiring, spirit crushing but it was familiar. The abused understood the dynamics, the twisted, manipulative style of communication, the concepts of do and be rewarded or punished. It was warped, oppressive and unhappy but the abused knew how to cope with it. In the absence of any different life experience or possession of enough inner strength to leave, familiarity was all they knew. _

_Stay with home and family or strike out with nothing but strangers you hope you can trust to help -- and what help was there for uneducated, married mothers? It was 1974. Kendall could think of one funded Shelter in the entire state that catered to abused women and their children. Perhaps someday that would change for the better._

_Sadly, Kendall had nothing to offer Blythe but encouragement to try some different methods of communication at home to curb or stop the abuse. He advised she have a bag ready and somewhere in mind to go if the abuse became too much or escalated. _

_He requested she return to talk with him some more and let him know if she had made some successful arrangements. _

_Blythe House, empty of tears and mute, declined, but she thanked him and wrote a cheque._

XXX

Part VIII ASAP!


	8. Chapter 8

Wounded Ways

Part VIII

Pairing: House/Wilson established relationship.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Abuse. Sexual situations. Medical situations. SLASH.

Summary: House family crises, extreme Hurt/comfort, Peripheral character death.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

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Trust and intimacy had to go hand in hand or you had neither.

For House, lies and betrayal were glued back to back. A lie is betrayal of trust, a betrayal makes the truth that was told you a lie. Trust was an elusive concept, easily falling as promises from the lips of most, almost impossible to uphold completely. Thanks to his fathers' message of you're of no value as yourself, House had learned not to _trust _trust. Small wonder he trip-toed around intimacy, only occasionally allowing it passage and then only in small, controllable doses.

Wilson would love to be able to say to House, even in his own mind, _We're going to get you well. __**Trust**__ me. _But that would have been a lie in sugar coating, or a honest belief with fingers crossed.

What he could do, though, was assure him they would do everything possible to get him well. That was more precise. House appreciated precise, even if he thought it was hopeless.

Beside Houses' bed, Wilson stiffened in his chair when Dad House entered the room who almost turned around to leave again when he saw Wilson sitting there, but his need to be with his son won out over fear of his sons' very angry room-mate.

John House didn't ask Wilson to vacate the chair, but Wilson could read him easily enough. "He's holding his own. Repeated blood samples showed elevated white-count but nothing else. We're doing a lung biopsy to check for cancer or any thing we may have missed." He told John. "Would you like to visit for a while?"

John nodded. "I'm not going to hurt him, if that's what you're thinking." He added defensively.

Wilson thought, _No, I suppose you won't. Can't really do much more damage._ Had House driven that car into the pole purposely? Wilson would like to believe he had not, but it was not possible to be a hundred percent regarding the reasons behind anything House did.

Surely just his fathers' presence would not trigger some impulse to suicide? Wilson knew enough psychology to know that much. What else he had read shed glimmers on the thinking in the mind of the suicidal. The belief that life might go on indefinitely but without joy. That was a big one. When all roads to wellness appear blocked and all routes to painlessness have been closed, suicide becomes the pragmatic choice. A logical solution. Extreme distress seeks extreme action. Hope for a future doesn't come to a halt, just the hope that it can be met with any inkling of happiness. If the depressive believes that contentment or joy will ever elude him, death is viewed as a perfectly acceptable alternative. It was just human mathematics.

Wilson said, "I'll be outside the door." A subtle murmur and a thin veil of _I'll kill you if you touch him._

Wilson noted Johns' small bandage. The area around its edge was red and inflamed. "I thought you said you got that looked at?"

John looked at his hand curiously as though forgetting he owned one. "I did. It's just itchy as hell. Blister."

A bell went off in Wilsons' head. "Excuse me." He quickly left.

Houses' team were mixing it up on the board. Wilson entered and looked at the symptoms there-on. Houses symptoms. He almost hesitated to say it. If he was right, House having gotten this ill was probably his fault, his lack of attention. But if he was right..."An atypical non-tuberculous mycobacteria would account for all of Houses' symptoms, the fever, the swelling, the free-granulomas in his lungs, the rash . . ."

Kutner answered. "Yes. But we checked the usual domestic sources of NTM at Houses' apartment. We swabbed every water source."

"We even checked the supply of surgical solutions at the hospital. All negative." Taub added.

Wilson thought, _Then it all fits_. "We didn't check his fathers' apartment."

"Why would we --?" Foreman started then stopped. He rolled his eyes in _I'm an idiot_ way. "Houses' dad hit him."

Wilson tumbled out the words that had finally made their way to his frontal cortex. "John House just moved to an new apartment, and when I say new, I mean old. The building is old, the pipes are old, the water tanks are probably from the turn of the century. . . "

Foreman barked out orders and the three younger members of Houses' team scrambled to get them done. "Get House started on Ciprofloxacin, Prednisone and azithromycin. And keep a sharp eye on his liver function."

Wilson rubbed his face. "I never thought about cross contamination." He said, shaking his head at himself. "I saw the wound. I knew John House had moved into an old building. . . "

Foreman was quick to stop Wilsons' self-flagellation. "We _all_ knew those things, none of us made the connection." House was right. Moaning about mistakes was wasted energy. Houses' philosophy for diagnostic medicine was simple: Don't make a mistake. But if you do, find the mistake and fix it.

XXX

John House wondered just where he had all made it go wrong. His forms of discipline had been too harsh. Obviously. His father had trained up him in a similar vein and he himself had become a man, a husband and father, a marine. His only son was a famous doctor. Surely he had done some things right?

Yet he recalled back to those years after Greg's car accident at age fifteen and how everything changed once again. Rarely up to that point had his son made time for him. After that summer, Greg hardly spoke to him at all. John, then soul-blinded to it, now could take his mind back and clearly see the unhappiness in his boy. Watch him go off to college, medical school, internships, meet a beautiful woman, get crippled, watch the beautiful woman dump him and leave. Watch his son drink and take pills and be in pain.

And, as his father, he had missed all of it. Absent in spirit. After that, Greg never came to him for anything. Not a word of advice, no call to tell him what was happening in his life. Nothing. John stood helplessly as Blythe repeatedly voiced her worry over Gregs' self-destructiveness, her heart-ache over his break-up, her anguish that her only child was in pain every day, her fear that he seemed to have withdrawn into a stranger and that they were "losing him".

_He'll snap out of it._ John had told himself, and her, often.

Then Blythe died. His dear wife of fifty years - gone, and the nameless fear that he had repudiated and scoffed at settled in his mind that somehow he would also watch his son die and not even know the reason. Not say goodbye or I'm sorry or any of the other thousand things he should have had the courage to say. Not Marine courage or husband, but father courage. What was happening to his son now, in that closed off hospital room, John felt he had laid the foundation for years ago.

Wilson entered the room again. John knew it was because the man was afraid that he the father would hurt the son. He may never live down what he had done, but never again would he _live up_ to it -- to himself. Never again. There was no way to reassure Wilson that he only wanted to make amends and see his son live.

"I will never hurt my son again." It sounded weak and pathetic and not enough. Not near enough - even to him_. I am a father promising a near stranger that I won't strike my ill son again._ What good promises are ever made by tyrants?

Wilson pulled over a second chair. He didn't answer, just sat and watched House and the IV bags and the monitor - so many artificial things encouraging a real live person to breath a little longer.

_And fight another day._

"Hou - Greg," Wilson said, "is a fighter you know. I've seen him come back from worse."

"Gun shots." John House said quietly.

"And the leg."

He nodded. "Yes, and the leg."

Wilson decided not to mention the booze and pills. Enough happy memories for one evening.

XXX

Chase entered the conference room where Taub, Hadley and Kutner discussed their patient and House, the other patient. Chase wasn't sure how to say it, so he just said it as simply and honestly as he could. "House isn't doing well. there's some question whether he'll make it through the night." He said to them. Their faces displayed a mix of emotions, all changing and sorting themselves out into a mix of disappointment, regret, sadness. "If any of you have anything you want to say to him, or if you just want to say goodbye, . . now would be a good time." Chase looked at each of them in turn and left.

He returned to the ICU, knowing that his work where House was concerned, was over.

But still he topped by the room where John House kept a quiet vigil, waiting for his only child to die. Chase paused in the doorway.

John finally sensed someone there and turned around. Chase cleared his throat. "Um, if it's all right with you, I'd like . . ." He had determined never to regret the years spent working for House and never to hate him. His own father he had hardly known but had hated him his whole life. When his father died, there had been no goodbyes. Chase felt he owned it to himself to make this parting proper.

He entered the room and stood beside Houses' bed. If any other patient had been his charge, he would have explained to the family that there was nothing more to be done and the persons' own immunities and tenacity would have to fight to do the rest of the healing. But this was House and he felt he couldn't _not_ say his own goodbye.

John House left the room, gathering that the young doctor wanted a moment or two alone. Chase reassured him of the same. "I'll only be a moment."

Once John House was gone, Chase sat in the vacated chair. He thought maybe he ought to take Houses' hand but recognized that House would see it as a useless gesture, since he was unconscious and could not feel it. Chase resisted.

"You were a jerk for firing me." His voice sounded oddly loud in the dim room of machines and ragged breathing. "But my four years working for you were some of the best of my life." House acknowledged nothing. Chase examined the tired face of his former boss. It was a good face. Not kind but possessed a certain level of sensitivity - though he knew House would vehemently deny it. The face was lined and rough, intelligent and humorous. He had seen more of Houses' face and received more of his open wrath and, he believed, Houses' silent pride, than he ever had from his own father.

"I know it probably doesn't mean anything to you but, . . ." Chase was astounded to find himself choked up. No matter what an ass House had been over the years, he had also been an exceptional teacher and mentor. And now it was all over. ". . .but I just wanted to say thanks. . ."

Chase half expected House to sit up, roll his eyes, crack a joke or say something dismissive, but the monitors didn't alter their tuneless beeping. " . . .and goodbye."

XXX

"I'm sorry."

Wilson wondered if House heard his fathers' quiet talk. People were always so quick to say the unpleasant things. Reluctant, almost embarrassed, to say the kind things. The things that healed instead of cut.

"Was --" John House quickly corrected his tense, "_is_ my son happy with you?"

Astonished at the mans' unusual candor when it came to anything so touchy-feely, Wilson nodded his head then, remembering John was turned away from him, his eyes on his son, he answered "Yes. I think so." And added. "I'm happy with him."

John House turned and stared at him, his eyes wet and round and terrified for his son. "Do anything you must to save him. I'll pay any price. Anything." He turned back around. "Anything at all." He whispered, "My son. A child, my child, shouldn't die before me. It's wrong, Doctor Wilson."

So many things had been. So many still were. A few, a handful, were getting better. "We're doing everything we can." Wilson did not say he had lay beside Greg the whole night talking to him, urging him to find the strength in himself to live through it.

"Without my son, I don't have anything."

XXX

When House opened his eyes, he saw, at his bedside, his father with his head down, snoring softly. And his lover, Wilson, asleep in a lounge chair he had obviously brought in for himself.

John felt the stirring of his on and woke up instantly. He managed to collect himself and not faint with relief. "Greg." He said simply. But there was none of the stern marine fighting man in his voice now, just a father glad to see his son awake and looking better.

Wilson awoke, saw House was up and checked his vitals. "Your O2's are good. Feel strong enough to breath on your own?"

At Houses' nod, Wilson crooked a finger to John House for assistance. Together they raised House into a sitting position. Wilson removed the band keeping the intubator in place and the tube down his throat. He took hole of it and instructed House, though he knew House knew the routine. "Cough and keep coughing while I slowly pull it out."

With a retch, the offensive tube slid out of his esophagus. House coughed heartily and cleared his throat. Wilson arranged some more pillows under his head and they helped him lay back down.

Looking at his father, "Dad." House said as simply. No bitterness there, just fatigue.

Wilson leaned over him with a little smile of gentle amusement belying an overwhelming surge of gladness. "Lazy ass."

House looked at both. "I come back, " -- _cough! cough!_ -- "from the brink and all I get are insults." His voice was scratchy and raw. He brought his eyes to rest on his father, as though drawing him into a joke shared between father a son as if to say - _Did Mom ever treat you like this?_

"How'r you feeling, son?" John House asked, breathing easier himself for the first time in a week.

"Lousy." House glanced from his father to his lover. "Um, I need to talk to Wilson alone for a minute."

John House nodded, quickly standing. "Yeah. Sure. I need some breakfast anyway." At the door, he suddenly had a thought, perhaps, for him, a new one. "Uh, can I bring you boys anything?"

They both declined, and John, satisfied, left.

House looked up at Wilson. "I'm surprised you two haven't killed each other."

"Well, it's not like I didn't _want_ to." Wilson answered. "It's just I figured you might have something to _say_ about it. Believe me I wanted to bloody his nose, break his legs and arms and maybe pound him into the ground."

"Hmm. I admire your restraint."

Wilson leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. "Well, it's not like I didn't want to kill _you _a few times." He glanced at the closed door. "Think he'll grow to love me?"

"Does anyone?" House coughed again. "Maybe he'll grow to understand you. Hell, maybe even me a little."

"Does anyone?"

XXX

John House went home to sleep and Wilson, after another forty-eight hours of observation, drove House home, taking pleasure in helping him undress in their bedroom. As much as he wanted to screw him cross-eyed, he knew Houses' body just wouldn't cooperate. Not yet.

But that didn't mean he couldn't lay beside him and play with whatever might cooperate. Like his nipples and lips and the feel of Houses' skin beneath his fingers. Wilson kissed and pulled at Houses' mouth, running his hands up and down his abdomen, all the while trying to see the child that had been.

Images of a child House plunged into ice-baths or forced to sleep on grass in the dark would run through his mind and he;'d be filled with a fury over John Houses' treatment of his son. He would imagine himself coming upon such horrible scenes and rush head on in to save him. then Wilson remembered that much of the abuse had happened before he was even born and the futility and uselessness of such images would wash the pictures from his mind, leaving him empty and tired.

And always, every time, he speculated that, had such abuses not occurred, what sort of man would Greg House have grown into? What changes in the man he was now would be evident? What things now invisible might have emerged? It was a pointless exercise. House was who he was. He was as God, and a disappointed, sometimes kind, sometimes cruel human father had made him.

Contrary to what John House had long believed, Wilson knew, very intimately knew, that the result wasn't as bad as many thought. House was grating and rude. He was an addict who drank too much. As a lover and companion, he was a mix of tenderness and crudeness, ardent appetites and apathetic laziness.

Where he thought life called for it, House was invariably honest. As a physician he was unarguably brilliant.

As a son, he had survived. House had reached fifty with his soul, though a bit warped and off-color, intact. That kind of strength was a testament to stubbornness. That most frustrating quality in House existed now, in Wilsons' eye, as a virtue, not a fault and Wilson loved him for it.

And when statistically he had no right to, House had come out of his concussion, seizure, heart attack, and insane electrical encounters trying to find God or an answer, relatively unscathed. The mans' luck was phenomenal. Numbers didn't lie but he had cheated them just the same.

Wilson said it all in one sentence. "I am hopelessly, passionately, _pathetically_ in love with you." Knowing how lame House would think the expression.

As Houses' father had said to Wilson again on the phone the evening before, "I just want my son to be happy. If you're doing that for him, I'm good with that."

It was simple. He loved his son. But love wasn't easy.

"I love him." Wilson said back.

"Er, right. Have him call me, will ya'? When he gets up? When he's feeling better."

Yes, he would. But for now Greg House was his and only his.

House sighed at Wilsons' romantic sentimentality and responded with his own expression of eternal devotion -- "Suck face already!" 

XXX

END


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